Beth and Mark's Gap Year 2014: February 2014

Saturday 22 February 2014

Running from the rain 16 Feb to 21 Feb

When I last signed off I indicated (perhaps a little smugly) that trifling matters such as weather were not going to get in our way. I suspect that Mother Nature caught wind of my boastful attitude and decided to teach me a lesson. Torrential and persistent rain and fog which London would be proud of were sent to test us and despite our best efforts we failed to overcome these obstacles. I didn’t capture an image of us standing under shelter at Govett’s Leap in full walking regalia (including walking poles – but more on that later) waiting for the fog to lift and the rain to abate. If I had, it would have been a forlorn picture indeed.

Our plan after Katoomba was to head to Wollemi National Park just a little further north, but all indications were that the weather was as unrelenting there as it was at Katoomba, so after two days confined to indoors we decided to pack our trailer (in the teeming rain) and head inland until the rain stopped – and there we would set up camp. Our initial thoughts were to stay at Bathurst, but after Beth broke all records driving around the Mount Panorama circuit (fastest ever lap by a Jeep towing an Ultimate camper and driven by a woman named Lisbeth), we felt there was little more to achieve in Bathurst and we decided upon Hill End as the place to stay.

Our spirits were high until we opened the trailer and discovered why it is not a great idea to pack up in heavy rain – basically everything gets wet. Luckily the sun was shining and the camp ground was well equipped to allow us to repurpose the site as a laundry. Mattresses, pillows, cushions, food containers and the like were all strewn around the site in sunny spots and were dry within a couple of hours, by which time our dampened spirits had also dried.

Hill End as it turned out was an inspired choice. It is a gold mining town which rose quickly (8,000 inhabitants, 4 churches and 27 pubs) in the late 19^th century (on the back of gold discoveries of course), and declined just as quickly a few years later when the gold got harder to find. Happily, much of the town remained intact after its decline, and it is now a lovely little heritage listed town which is far enough off the beaten track to dissuade most tourists from visiting. The language of choice in the Katoomba caravan park was German and the bulk or tourists riding the cable car were Asian. Not so at Hill End where there were only a sprinkling of tourists, mostly like our own good selves. There was however a group of art students from a Sydney university in town (Hill End has links to quite a few famous Australian artists and is evidently a drawcard for aspiring artists) who we kept bumping into, and I guess it is fair to say that they speak a language just as foreign as German.

After two very enjoyable (and rain free) days at Hill End, we decided to try again for Wollemi National Park, and after a very pleasant morning walk we commenced packing up, which we were just 10 minutes from completing when the heavens opened up. More sogginess ensued, and Beth and I contemplated the notion of marketing ourselves as rainmakers. Everything west of the divide is currently parched in NSW, so although we were again cursing the rain, in truth it was a blessing and we should not complain. Needless to say the rain persisted and as we approached Wollemi with the windscreen wipers working at full tilt, we decided that Wollemi did not want us, and we would visit another time. Instead we headed for our next planned destination - Lake Macquarie (which is just south of Newcastle), and that is where we are currently.

The weather has so far been quite kind to us (thank you Mother Nature), but we are bracing ourselves for an abrupt change once we start packing up to leave. Because we have lost a couple of days walking this has given us the opportunity to do some catching up. Yesterday we walked the Fernleigh Trail, which is a 17km former rail track which runs from Lake Macquarie into the Newcastle suburbs, and today we walked the final 21km of the Great North Walk (from Warners Bay to the Newcastle Wharf). The Great North Walk, which is 250 km from Sydney to Newcastle is one which we will definitely tackle sometime in the future, so it was good to get a little taste of it. All this walking has restored our average a little, but we are both a little weary and tomorrow we may just settle for a 10km stroll.

Upon reading my blog, members of my family have chided me for my treatment of Beth. They say I have developed caricatures with Beth being unfairly cast in the role of either villain or fool, and myself the poor victim and tragic hero of this villainy. In some respects I plead guilty as charged, and maybe just occasionally I have overstated some things and understated others (perhaps in my favour), but rest assured I know that without Beth my adventures would be misadventures – and I do know how lucky I am that she tolerates my many frailties and failings and steers me in the right direction when I start to drift. As I have said in the past, I would be lost, both figuratively and practically without Beth (my sense of direction is showing no signs of improvement as I age).

When last we spoke I mentioned that we are each taking specific responsibilities. I have appointed myself as Chief Technology Officer. This is a role for which I would consider myself eminently qualified having spent a lifetime dabbling in matters technical and even making a half decent living from it. Turns out that alas, I am not quite as well equipped for this role as I thought, and I have been somewhat challenged by the vast array of supposedly integrated technologies we are using in our travels. We have a GPS which has misled us on many occasions and has now been banished to the glove box; we have 2 iPads and 2 iPhones which are integrated through the “cloud”, but we never quite know what they are doing or how much precious data they are consuming; we have a little Windows laptop, which keeps demanding Microsoft updates which our meagre data rations cannot support; we have a camera which takes great pictures and has WiFi capabilities but doesn’t seem to work nicely with anything else; and the list goes on.

By the end of this trip I will have all this technology properly harnessed, but at the moment I am not making a great fist of it. Last week when I got a new monthly 500mb allotment of data on my prepaid iPhone, I decided I would use my phone as a tethered modem for the laptop to upload a few photographs to the internet. What I hadn’t considered was that the laptop would automatically download updates, and that my iPad was lurking in the background waiting for a known connection to latch onto so it could perform backups. Before I realised what was happening my data had gone. For my sins, for the next month I have to rely upon others for internet access. I wouldn’t say Beth is smug, but she does seem to be using her phone a lot lately – and effectively to boot. I am a little concerned that I may be usurped by Beth in my position of CTO.

We have a couple more nights at Lake Macquarie before we move on to Myall Lakes National Park and hopefully some more bush walks (with the emphasis on bush). Tomorrow I have been promised a visit to McDonalds – not for the food but the WiFi – so that I can post this blog and perhaps do a few more maintenance things which require internet access. We may be turned away if we arrive with all our devices in tow. Wish me luck.

Hill End Church

General Store - Hill End

Presbyterian Church - Hill End

Mining relic - Hill End

Lazy kangaroo - Hill End

Hill End Fence

Kangaroo and tractor - Hill End

Gate - Hill End

Old building - Hill End

Hill End - Valley views

Lake Macquarie Sunset

Mining relic - Newcastle

Great North Walk - Finish line

Sunday 16 February 2014

Around Sydney 5-15 February

We are currently sitting in our little trailer at Katoomba with the rain tumbling down and our plans for a big walk not looking very good, so probably a good opportunity to put together a bit of an update.

We had intended spending 5 nights at Royal National Park right on Sydney’s doorstep and a short ferry trip to Cronulla where Beth’s brother Kelvin lives (not to be confused with our son Kelvin), but we did not account for the popularity of the park and could not secure a booking during the weekend. Instead we booked 3 nights at a State Conservation Reserve called Bent’s Basin just west of Sydney, and followed that up with 3 nights at Royal NP.

First impressions were that we got it wrong with Bent’s Basin as it seemed to be a reasonably well appointed (by National Parks standards), but rather dull camping area whose one claim to fame was a rather impressive and well frequented swimming hole. These impressions were reinforced by the Parks Officer who told us that there really wasn’t any good walking in the park. I was not necessarily distressed by this, but Beth was visibly shaken.

Upon further investigation we found that there were actually some decent walks to be had, and Beth also decided that there must be some interesting (albeit unmapped) walking to be done clambering over rocks along the Nepean River which passed through the park and provided the water for the swimming hole. We didn’t expect the walks to be much good, but it turns out they were actually quite nice – and despite dire warnings regarding snakes and wild deer (I didn’t quite understand what we had to fear from wild deer either), we only encountered friendly wildlife. All up it was a very pleasant stay, made all the better by Kelvin spending the weekend with us.

We used Bent’s Basin as a testing ground for our full camp setup which involved erecting an annexe, attaching an awning, and installing a second bedroom – all of which gave us luxurious accommodation on three levels, but also increased our setup and tear down time markedly.

On Sunday morning after Kelvin’s 10 minute camp pack up, he helped us with our deconstruction exercise and agreed to accompany us to Royal NP via Camden for a lunch stopover. Camden is a lovely little historic town which we were informed was the birthplace of the wealth of the nation (whatever that means – we think sheep may have been involved).

Success at Bent’s Basin in using all our annexes encouraged us to do likewise on our beachfront allotment at Royal NP. Another miscalculation unfortunately, as we hadn’t considered that it gets quite windy on the beach. A sleepless night listening to flapping canvas and progressively taking it down was our penance. To be fair, we did find out later that the wind that night was unusually fierce and we were not alone in having a sleepless night.

Royal NP is an absolutely delight and a Mecca for casual bushwalkers like Beth and I. During our 3 day stay we did about 50km of walking, and Beth is already planning our next (and longer) stay here to cover the many miles of trail that we missed. The coastal scenery is amazing, and although spring is the best time for the wildflowers, the vegetation was nonetheless beautiful and wonderfully varied. Sydneysiders are very lucky to have this treasure on their doorstep and should be very proud of it. Unfortunately some treat it very shabbily, and the spread and volumes of garbage, particularly following a weekend of day visitors was really disappointing.

We are gradually starting to develop an efficient routine as our travels progress and each of us is taking on distinct responsibilities. Beth has taken on the role of chief spotter. Apart from my eyesight being poor, my hearing being shot and my appalling sense of direction I am not entirely sure why she didn’t allow me that responsibility, but I am happy enough to leave it to Beth. You would be amazed at how many things need to be spotted. Bushfire spotting involves a check of the news and local fire authority web sites each morning before we set out and frequent scans of the horizon for smoke as we progress. Wildlife spotting has two forms. There is potential road kill spotting, which happens whilst we are driving (we are still working on the alert protocols and driver reaction times for this one), and photo opportunity spotting, which happens whilst we are on the trail. Beth is pretty good at this one, and her speciality is Lyrebirds which she has found at every destination so far. She is not quite so good with lizards and snakes, and even missed a 5 ft long goanna which came to visit our toilet block at Royal NP. There is also landmark spotting, waymark spotting, trail branch spotting…. And the list goes on. There is one spotting discipline which is occasionally assigned to me. On-trail toilet break privacy spotting involves standing guard on the track whilst the toilet break is taken and sounding an alarm should intruders approach. I have a good record so far, but it is a bit tricky watching both ways on the track and I am not really confident of retaining that record.

Another lesser spotting role which Beth excels at and is probably worthy of reporting is bucket spotting. Our wild windy weather at Royal NP caused our sullage bucket (which normally sits under the trailer drain point) to be taken from us. I was prepared to concede that it had gone to bucket heaven, but not so Beth, who set out following the course of the wind to find the bucket, which she did some 300 metres down the beach. More recently our emergency night time toilet (aka an ice cream bucket) was also taken by the wind during and stormy night at Katoomba and was also successfully recovered by Beth some distance away.

We are currently at Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, which is one of my favourite places on earth to walk. Although many gung-ho bushwalkers would disagree, to me the perfect walk is one where human endeavour in laying down tracks, installing lookouts etc. has opened up areas of great natural beauty to anybody who has the energy and ability to put one foot in front of the other, and there are plenty of these walks in the Blue Mountains. A walk that we did yesterday around and down (and then up again) the valley wall at Wentworth Falls was spectacularly beautiful, but only accessible to us through a series tracks and steps cut into the valley walls more than 100 years ago. This human endeavour stuff was marvellous and beautiful in its own right.

Needless to say our walking theme persists, and although the weather is conspiring against us at the moment we are still managing to get in at least one good walk a day, but to my delight the walks are interspersed during bad weather with coffee and cakes. It is still raining so I may make some gentle coffee hints to Beth, but I suspect they will go unheeded and I will be given the “too much of a good thing” lecture. Will update again in the next couple of weeks, by which stage we will have made our way in a zig-zag fashion a little further up the coast.

Swimming at Bent's Basin

Water Dragon at Bent's Basin

Coastal Walk - Royal NP

Era Beach - Royal NP

Boat on a Beach - Maianbar - Royal NP

Beach - Mainbar - Royal NP

Visitor at out toilet block - Royal NP

3 Sisters - Katoomba

Bridal Veil Falls - Blue Mountains NP

Jamieson Valley View - Blue Mountains NP

Lyrebirds - Jamieson Valley - Blue Mountains NP

Sharing our lunch with lizards - Ruined Castle - Blue Mountains NP

Hartley - Blue Mountains NP

Wentworth Falls - Blue Mountains NP

Another set of falls - Blue Mountains NP

Wednesday 5 February 2014

Kosciuszco and the NSW south coast

27/1/2014 - 5/2/2014

It seems to have taken an age to get here, but we are finally on the road.

After some last minute rushing and teary goodbyes (no it wasn’t Kelvin or Mark crying) we got moving about midday on Monday and set a course for Buchan, for no particular reason other than it is about halfway to our first point of real interest (Kosciuszco National Park) and on the route of the Barry Way which I have been quite keen for some time to travel. The trip to Buchan was quite uneventful (which for a novice pair of touring folk like us is a happy outcome) and we arrived intact and unfrazzled. Parking and setting up the campervan also seemed amazingly smooth and was completed well within our target time of 30 minutes. Perhaps we are less “novice” than we thought? It was only when we sat back to admire our handiwork that we realized we had parked the van sideways across two sites. Oh well, we revert to novice – luckily the park was nearly empty, so no need to right our wrong.

Buchan was lovely. We didn’t avail ourselves of its major tourist attraction (caves), but we did take a couple of walks, saw a lyre bird, explored the old town and enjoyed the Caves Reserve which is chock full of beautiful old trees from all parts of the world, some of which I believe are heritage listed. Beth is normally unenthusiastic about non-native plants in national parks and uses derogatory terms such as “weed” or “scourge” when referring to them, but the trees in Buchan Caves Reserve somehow seemed to belong and escaped her ire.

On Tuesday after a morning walk we packed up the camper (again a precise and well co-ordinated exercise) and took off on the slow and steady climb to the top of Australia (in terms of altitude). The drive from Buchan to Jindabyne via the Snowy Mountain Highway and Barry Way is quite spectacular, but not for the faint hearted. Very narrow, fallen rocks, blind bends and steeeeeep edges without barriers. Luckily we did not encounter much oncoming traffic so we both survived and enjoyed the experience. My nice new tyres/wheels and freshly cleaned vehicles did look slightly the worse for wear though – I fear they may not look shiny and clean for some time to come.

We booked in for three nights at a National Parks campground in Kosciuszco National Park called Thredbo Diggings, and despite an adventurous and tiring drive and a less than perfect camp setup, we immediately set about ensuring that we kept up our 10kpd (that’s kilometres per day) walking commitment.

The Thredbo Diggings campground is very nicely situated on a lovely bend in the Thredbo River, and our bedroom took prime position with million dollar views down the river. Idyllic?? Seemingly so, except the march flies in this neck of the woods (which have the size and sound of a small aircraft, stings like a sabre and who seem to be oblivious to the fact that we are still a month away from March), seemed to think this was their territory and resented us being there – bites and slaps ensued. Eventually we figured out how to tolerate each other, but tensions remained high and fighting broke out from time to time.

Despite the March flies, we enjoyed our stay which was very much based on walking and swimming in the river (a most agreeable – and necessary given the heat and my propensity to sweat when driven to exercise – substitute for us not having showers for 3 days). The most memorable walk during our stay was to the summit of Mount Kosciuszco. All the tourist material suggested that we catch a chairlift to the top of Mt Crackenback from which it is a long (6km) but fairly evenly graded walk to the summit. Beth had different ideas though, and decided that instead we would forego the chairlift up and add a very steep 10km to the walk. Thankfully she agreed to take the chairlift down, so our total distance for the day was only 23km. Arduous but very enjoyable, and my reward was the first caffeine fix since leaving home, a cappuccino in the Eagle’s Nest restaurant, accompanied by Beth and the 500 files I had brought in with me. The waitress wrinkled her nose somewhat, but served us nonetheless.

Before we left the campground we thought we would squeeze in just one more walk. It was quite pleasant until we encountered a slithering visitor, which Beth almost stood on. Upon realizing her proximity to the snake, she calmly moved away in a dignified manner and waited 100 metres down the track whilst I figured out a way to get past the serpent which was now right in the middle of the path. Thankfully it moved on and I was able to pass. Usain Bolt would have been proud of the time it took Beth to create the 100 metre gap she created between her and the snake.

Friday morning we packed up and moved across the hill out of the Thredbo valley and into the Perisher valley. No river to cool off in the heat here (and it has been quite hot), but showers here so I guess that compensates. More walking of course – each one accompanied by some form of pesky native animal, the most consistent of which has been the bush fly. I have never seen as many flies as we saw on our walk to Blue Lake (a glacial lake past Charlotte Pass), I feared suffocation at the hands (or probably legs really) of a thousand flies. It took the gloss of an otherwise very satisfying walk.

You may have noticed that I have not arrived at a comfortable way to refer to our vehicles. Caravan, Campervan, Camper Trailer, Car, Truck, 4WD. I think that I need to be consistent so as not to confuse. I raised this concern with Beth, and suggested that perhaps we should name our vehicles. Beth pointed out that this is typical grey nomad behaviour, and given my views on becoming one of them it would perhaps not make sense to name our vehicles. She has a point, but has not solved my problem. I will have to ponder this one some more.

Sunday morning Beth surveys the landscape for signs of bushfires, and all looks clear so we strike out for the coast via the lovely Bega valley and settle on the small town of Tathra as the place to stay for a couple of nights. There was much agonising over this choice, particularly because we had a Wednesday morning appointment in Moruya (120km away) to have “the thing that we tow and sleep in” serviced, and making this appointment would involve a very early start, which despite having made early starts for 35 years, we do find undesirable. The decision to stay however was inspired, as the town was lovely and also provided us with a beautiful coastal walk through the Bournda National Park to Turingal Head. About 22 tiring kilometres, but well worth it – wonderful coastal views and numerous wildlife sightings (goanna and echidna the highlights). Beth was so impressed with our efforts that she allowed me a cake of my own choosing without (much) censure at the bakery we happened upon close to home (Apple pie with cream if you want to know – and very nice).

Up early on Wednesday to make our date with the service man (our trailer was built in Moruya, so we thought it would be opportune to have them check that everything was still well intact and to deal with a couple of small issues). Despite zombie like behaviour, we seemed to manage this pretty well. The van required a sleepover at the factory to allow paint to dry, so this gave us the opportunity to catch up with my cousin and his family who live in Tuross Heads (which is nearby) and to have a sleepover of our own. We had a great time enjoying human company other than our own and the brief novelty of a fixed abode.

Farewell to distant family and we are off again heading up the coast, this time to Kiama just for the evening, Another lovely and very interesting coastal town. I think that I rather like this part of the world. As I write this it is about 9:30PM and it is raining. Rather nice after all the heat we have encountered, but I hope it lets up tomorrow as we head towards Sydney to meet up with Beth’s brother, who will camp out with us for a couple of nights.

Time and technology have conspired against delivery of this blog in a timely fashion, but I guess it is what it is, so I won’t make promises regarding my next update.

I read an interesting brochure at Tathra which indicated that the official classification for our mobile abode is “Tent trailer”!!! I cannot bring myself to use that title, it really does not conjure up images commensurate with the class and robustness of our little contraption. I think that I will need to name my conveyances, despite Beth’s misgivings. I will talk this out and I am sure that Beth will see reason. When I next post we will have arrived at dignified names for our tow vehicle and our towed vehicle.