One of the things about getting off the beaten track a bit is that you get to see all manner of wildlife that you wouldn't see by following hoardes of tourists around, including the tsunamis of Japanese that you see at all major attractions. The flipside to that is that there are more than a few things off the beaten track that want a piece of you. Let's start with Lamington National Park. We decided to have a crack at the West Canungra Creek Trail, a 14km track that drops about 500m in elevation before criss-crossing said creek 6 or 7 times and then bringing you back up the 500m again. We'd read all the warning signs saying that what goes down must come back up (referring to the walk rather than last night's dinner) and that when the creek is in flood it's best not to go near it. What it forgot to mention was that once you get to the wetter part of the rainforest you will be plagued by...leeches. We had to get into a routine of every 10-15 minutes having a leech check to remove them from shoes, trousers, t-shirts, arms, legs you name it. The majority of them were pretty small but there were some bigguns too that weren't took keen to let go of you. Much as I like a bit of attention that was too much. The walk itself though was excellent, leeches aside, and it set us up for a pretty good week.
We left Queensland behind this week as well and headed into New South Wales jumping forward an hour as we did so as Queensland haven't adopted daylight savings. Apparently it's because the locals would get too confused so you end up with the evenings in the height of summer being pitch black well before 7.
We did follow the tourist path at a couple of points along the way this week including a quick trip in to Byron Bay. We didn't really have a huge amount of time to explore many walks but we did go and have a look at the lighthouse and walk out to the easterlymost point in Australia.
Our next encounter with the great Aussie wildlife happened in Pacific Palms, just south of Forster-Tuncurry. We found a great little campsite that was just set back from the beach. After picking our site we decided to have a quick look at the beach. Ignoring the black lizard on our right we made our way around the corner on the sandy path to come face to face with...a brown snake. Now we had a feeling they were ones that shouldn't be messed with, this one was around 4 foot long, so we made like the Knights Who Say Nee and chickened out and ran away. We later asked the people who ran the campsite and they confirmed that if you're going to get bitten by a snake, make sure it's not the brown ones. They're pretty much the only ones that will try and have a go at you. Later on that night we were watching a possum in the trees when it came down to investigate us a little further and decided to check out how Rach's toes tasted. Nothing too hard but a nibble nonetheless. Lucky for it that it didn't go for my feet, poor thing wouldn't have stood a chance! At this campsite as well they have the Green Cathedral, not a huge building painted green but a clearing in the forest that is used for weddings and services. A really great spot that would be a very special place to get married, with a lake just behind it and the sunlight coming through the trees.
We've managed to fit in some wine tasting this week as well, visiting the Hunter Valley. Here we were plagued by flies and ants so found ourselves having to spend more time tasting the wine, shame!
We rounded the week off with a trip to the Blue Mountains and then the sea. These aren't mountains that have formed in the usual way of the earth rising up but instead the earth has been eroded down leaving mountains behind. This means that if you're going to do any walks you have to drop hundreds of metres first and then climb back up them at the end. Still, we managed a couple of good walks in the Jamison and Grose Valleys and got some great views over the mountains, made blue by the haze of eucalypt oil that comes from all the eucalyptus trees. Parts of the Grose Valley are recovering from a huge bushfire but the regrowth has already started and it's fascinating to see how the forest recovers after something like that.
Our final night before heading to Sydney was spent literally camped on the edge of Coledale Beach where we could sit and watch, for about the third or fourth time this week, pods of dolphins swimming by and enjoy the sunrise. After last week being a little strange and disjointed this week was excellent and we're now looking forward to a week of a bit of relaxing and exploring the sights of Sydney.
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