Trip to Australia - Feb 2010 - Jay Christopherson


	Jay & Nicole Visit Australia February 2010 (click any picture for enlargement)

*Our Australia trip story picks up as we are about to leave Sydney - this begins week #2.*

We decided to rent a camper van, as most books said that it's the best way to see Australia. There were plenty of campgrounds listed in each area and they shouldn't be very full.

Our van had a fridge, stove & microwave. It says it can sleep four, but luckily there were only three of us at this point. We also borrowed Ursula's GPS device, which was very comforting to have!

The route we planned was about 1000 km and would take us to the interior of Eastern Australia, it should take 4-5 days to complete. We planned go to the Blue Mtns. for some hiking and then to the Mudgee area for wine tasting. We would then snake around some mountain ranges to get to the rodeo town of Tamworth. After that we'd head back to the sea, hopefully hitting a nice zoo near Port Macquarie. Then we'd have to plan out the next two+ weeks of travel.


*It took an hour to get out of Sydney and into the Blue Mountains, a very* popular National Park.


*We stopped at Katoomba to go for a hike; the prominent landmark here is called the three sisters.*


*Looking south across the valley we could see tree-lined canyons, with interesting cloud shadows.*

*A few hiking trails followed the line of cliffs, which had steep drop-offs. We decided to take a shorter hiking trail since it looked like it might rain soon.* *We were quite high in altitude and the temperature was quite chilly.*


The trail was flat and easy to hike; the forest was full of eucalyptus trees that lose their bark. We looked for koalas but didn't see any. They like to eat these leaves, but they need a warmer climate.

*We were surprised at the piles of bark lying along the floor of the forest ... no wonder the fires we heard about in this region burn so hot.* *The dilemma for park managers is whether to clean things up so that there aren't bad fires, or let mother nature alone and allow periodic fires to occur.*

*At the end of the trail we got a view of the Three Sisters from the side; there were trails up, but we decided to play it safe and return the way we came.* *We also got a closer look at the valley floor, which had sporadic green meadows.*


*There were few flowers, but many bushes with strange seed pods ... which only open in a fire.*

We returned to the camper and drove to a campground in the town of Blackheath. It took us quite a while to figure out where everything was located in the camper ... and how to put it all together.


A cute Kookaburra sat in the tree above us ... it made a loud laughing noise, probably mocking our trouble with the camper :-) Overall, our first night of camping went rather well.

*The next day we searched for the main hiking trail; there were big houses with nice yards.*		*We found a trail, but our map did not agree with the signs ... let's hope we don't get lost!*


*The trail took us along one side of a valley; at the highest point we stopped to take pictures..*


*This view was westwards; I was, once again, surprised by how green everything was.*


*After the hike we drove north and followed the Blue Mountains, the haze never went away.*


We then dropped down into the valley and left the Blue Mountains behind us. I was slowly getting used to the camper and driving on the left side; luckily the roads were good and there wasn't much traffic.

*The terrain quickly changed from rugged mountains to flat farm and pasture land.* *We could see a lot of water standing in the fields, so they must have gotten a lot of rain ... which explains why everything was so green.*


*These are some countryside shots ... the area was like a prairie, with many herds of cattle grazing.*


As we neared the Mudgee area we began to see many vineyards. We stopped to visit a few, but we didn't like the wine very much. The weather was much warmer and more humid ... and there were tons of flies that were terrible! We camped again, but with the heat and bugs, no one slept very well.


*We left the wet vineyard area and headed into a drier area where most of their animals are raised.*


*There were gigantic herds of cows and flocks of sheep ... and some very big farm structures.*


*The small towns looked like they were from the wild frontier days ... "flashes from the past".*


*Every shop catered either to farmers or to people passing through; note the extreme cleanliness!*


*So far, we found travelling to be VERY easy and the countryside to be very picturesque.*


*We passed a cool looking rock formation that signaled we were entering another geographic region.*


*The terrain got much more hilly and we began to see more horses than cattle and sheep.*


*The area of Scone is known as the 'horse capital' of Australia ... due to the large breeding operations.*

	We camped at Tamworth, known as the 'country music capital' of Australia. There was also a lot of rodeo & horse-related stuff ... ... and the flies were still bad! *We set up the tent and Claudia was happy to vacate the camper ... we placed her suitcase outside, but the joke didn't work.*

We left Tamworth without seeing much of the area; most of these 'sleepy' towns didn't have many activities and seemed to shut down at sunset ... which reminded me of many small towns in the USA.


The road became very windy as we climbed into the coastal mountains; luckily no one got car-sick. The driving became even more challenging as we encountered fog ... then it began to rain ... not fun!


As we got nearer to the coast, we descended from the mountains and the rain/fog thankfully disappeared. This part of the trip took much longer than expected, but luckily we didn't have a tight schedule ... except that we wanted to get to an upcoming zoo before they fed the animals!

*At this point we need to transition to another page ... click here to visit the Wildlife Park* Return to Jay's Main Page