Category: Australia

Made a beeline for the famous Blue Mountains National Park just west of Sydney. After a cruisey drive down from Myrall lakes and into metropolitan Sydney, I encountered my first toll roads in Australia. Oddly enough they didn’t have cash lanes, so I opted to set my GPS to avoid them. Sydney is a great city, but like most – better seen without a car or gear in the back to worry about. I headed up into the mountains to see what I’ve often head people talk about and what I regularly see out of my plane window when flying to Perth from Sydney.

There had been fired in the area and there was still a bit of lingering smoke, but the Blue Mountains lived up to their reputation. There are a number of lookout points you can drive to at the top, but there are also a variety of trails that drop down to different levels of the cliffs, passing by rivers and waterfalls along the way. I took one trail recommended to me by the park staff that dropped you half way down the side of the cliff and along a ridge past waterfalls and amazing overlooks until you get to a very steep staircase up the other side. The National Pass trail it was called. A really amazing hike!

Afterwards I headed back down the other side of the mountains to find a campsite that was also recommended to me by the Blue Mountains staff. They gave me a map and showed me the best scenic route, so I logged a few of the towns into my GPS to route me and give me an ETA. Seeing as it was only about an hour and 15 minutes, and the temperature back down in the valley was hovering around 100F (again), I decided to goof off a bit in the first historic town I came to – even grabbing dinner from a local cafe. When I hopped back into my car to drive what was supposed to be the last 15 minutes I ended up in a suburban neighborhood with NO national parks or campsites in sight! Major GPS failure. Or maybe the map was wrong. I haven’t determined which yet, but I was finally able to punch in some GPS coordinated from a book I have on campsites for a campsite that appearing to be roughly in the same location as what was recommended to me. Only problem was that it was a good hour of driving down the road and the sun was setting fast.

It was a beautiful drive and the kangaroos were starting to come out (major road hazard), but after an hour of driving I came across one of the places the park staff had recommended – just as the sun was setting. It was down a long switchback road a few kms off the main road I came in on at a caving park. I arrived at the bottom to find no one around except one camper. Good enough for me, I pitched my tent and headed to bed soon afterwards.

What an amazing little find this turned out to be. As the light was getting low I saw my first mainland wombat scurry across the field next to me. There was lots of activity overnight with all kinds of big strange sounds (the hopping kangaroos being the easiest to figure out). Nothing to worry about in Australia as the mammals are rarely a problem for humans here. The stars were also amazing to see with no fly on my tent. In the morning I heard my first lyrebird. The first time I head about lyrebirds I though I was hearing an April Fools joke, but they really exist and can mimic any sound they hear. This one kept imitating the sound of a machine gun, so perhaps it had been hanging out at a local military training ground. I checked with the ranger in the morning and he confirmed that is what it was! It happens to be on the logo/badges of the New South Wales National Park Service.

Interestingly, there were a numerous sections of highways in New South Wales where average speeds were calculated by cameras. Sounds like the foolproof system for catching speeders. They have video cameras mounted over the highway lanes that read you licenses plates. They note when you’ve passed through and calculate the time it takes you to get through the next series of video cameras 10kms (or so) down the road. If it finds you speeding they just mail you your speeding ticket. Unlike point based speed traps, you can’t slow down too fool the radars because your speed is calculated by the average you travelled over the 10kms. Very smart and effective, I think.

Now that I’ve passed the eastern-most point in Australia (Byron Bay), every day’s drive will get me somewhat closer to Perth. I knew I had a long tedious drive to do today, so I kicked off by riding my bike down to the beach for a swim with the local surfers. It was very nice and I could have stayed there much longer that I did. Instead I shot off to the local town for breakfast (something I was originally planning to do in Byron Bay) and then hit the tedious turnpike.

Actually, it was a turnpike (toll road) and wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. It was quite busy, but limited to 2 lanes (1 in either direction) for most of it with passing lanes opening up from time to time. It reminded me somewhat of the old coast road up from Bunbury to Perth before they opened up the freeway. There was a fair bit of construction underway because they are trying to expend the entire stretch to 4 lanes. Some sections were done and seemed very light on traffic with 4 lanes.

I finally arrived at my destination after catching another small ferry and found a campsite at Myrall Lakes just over some sand dunes from a gorgeous eternally-long looking beach. I pitched my tent and went for a swim – just to bookend my day with two beautiful swims. The beach somehow reminded me to Assateague Island, but with possible dingoes instead of wild horses. Found some mysterious paw prints in the sand the following morning.