Weeping Rock - frozen tears

We headed off from Armidale toward Coff’s Harbour via the Waterfall Way this morning. We had seen in the book the boys gave Fin for Christmas that it was worthwhile going to Lookout Point along the way so we decided to give it a go. This involved a drive along a road which was mostly unmade and to our surprise there were a few B&Bs or cottage accommodation along the route. We got our car nice and dirty again but it was a fairly easy drive in and it was interesting country side with some cows grazing along the way, some nice birds flying past such as parrots – rosellas and king I think and some kookaburras. When we got out of our car, Fin noticed a Lyrebird in the bushes just near the carpark. I tried to get closer and take a photo or two which I did but not sure how good they are. (I haven’t put the card into the computer yet to take a look.) At the lookout there was a shelter where we could have our coffee but it was still very cold inside; we kept our coats on. There were maps and information on the walls and pamphlets available too. You couldn’t see much from the shelter so we went along the path to take a look from there. It was beautiful forest all around; snow gums, lichen growing on rocks and moss hanging on branches. I wanted to photograph everything I saw but had to be selective or we would have been there all day. While we were in the shelter, a couple came up from further down and told us that there was a magnificent sight at the Weeping Rock. Apparently there was a sheet of frozen water over the rock and drips frozen hanging from it but the guy warned that we should get down there because it might start to break off as it warmed up. We got into the car and drove down to the Weeping Rock car park and started to walk along the path to the Weeping Rock. We found what we thought the people were talking about and madly took photos but then someone else came along and said that it wasn’t it so we went along further and WOW! It was amazing! Freezing cold but amazing. I again took heaps of photos so you will get some idea what we saw. While we were standing there a small avalanche of ice cascaded down but of course I was startled and more worried about whether I was going to get hit by the ice than concerned with taking a photo despite Fin saying, “Get it!” I could never have reacted that quickly but it was spectacular to see it crashing down. The whole area was just so beautiful and we were very glad we made the effort and took the time to stop and see it. On our way back up the track to the car we heard a Lyrebird calling in the distance and then another closer to our path replying or, I should think, competing with it's own call. We tried to see it but when the bird realized we were there it went quiet. I wonder how many of them are in that area? Of course all of this meant we got to Coff’s Harbour later and ended up having more of an afternoon tea than lunch but that wasn’t a problem and we arrived at Yamba just before 6pm to a lovely cabin. As we drove up to our parking spot, our headlights shone on three kangaroos just behind our veranda down toward the pond where we could hear the frogs merrily serenading. I saw what I thought was a large moth fly by also but apparently they have micro bats here so it may have been one of those. What an interesting place!
The drive over the mountain (Dorrigo Mountain I think) was pretty windy and some very steep descents where the signs say trucks and buses need to use low gears. Fortunately all the traffic was coming the other way and we didn’t get stuck behind any trucks for this part of our journey. Even more fortunately I didn’t get carsick which I usually do on those types of roads but it was so beautiful and interesting with very tall eucalypts on both sides most of the time and, .. I just didn’t so hooray! Dorrigo itself looked like a lovely town, situated in very pretty hilly surroundings and with National parks, such as the one where Lookout Point are, so close by it is worth considering for a holiday in the future I think. There seemed to be quite a few farm stay or cottage accommodations available too.
We went to the Yamba Shores Tavern Pelicans Restaurant for dinner and had a really nice meal. Only one course and we our appetites were both adequately satiated. We were seated next to a couple with two little boys; one just two and the other 6 months old and struck a conversation with them telling them that we had been there, done that. They said we were lucky now and we told them they will get there but, yes it is hard when you have two little ones on holiday. Lucky there was a playground outside the restaurant as a bribe! Aah, we remember the days! Thank goodness they are over! Just joking boys.
Well, not sure we will have broadband here since they were meant to have it but they say they have problems with their wireless. I might be able to use it in the lounge area but if not will probably not upload more photos till we get to a broadband zone.

Lightning Ridge

We got up early this morning and packed our stuff up, put it in the car and moved the car to the main car park so we could go on a 3 hour tour after booking out. We did the Black Opal tour which covered the Walk-in mine, a look at the mining claims and camps, the odd houses including bottle houses and castles, the Black Queen bottle house, the house of Fred Bodel one of the original miners, saw videos about opal mining in Lightning Ridge, fossick for opals and see them being cut and polished. Oh, and Devonshire tea! It was very interesting to see how the miners live/lived. Some people still live there with generators for power and rocks and dust for front and backyards. We even saw kids play equipment in one yard so there are children living in those conditions too. People live in caravans, shanty type houses, old train carriages, whatever they can manage, to live on their claim and mine it. There are Holden car door signs all around instead of street signs. You can see Fin standing near one above. There is a central school with about 450 students from Prep to year 12. It is a nice building and grounds and they have a lovely new hospital and nursing home too. Of course, if someone is really ill they can be flown to Dubbo via the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Apparently the government provide a lot of funding for remote communities such as these. There is one supermarket in town and a ladies fashion shop but most stuff is aimed at tourism; opal shops and galleries.
The artesian baths are amazing. Basically it is a swimming pool with water pumped up straight from the artesian bore underground so it is very warm. There were people in there this morning when it was about 10 degrees or maybe less. The steam arising from the pool is incredible.
At $25 each, the tour was well worth doing since we were taken to the most interesting/relevant places and told lots of things it would have been hard to learn ourselves. Of course, they take you to their opal showroom and offer you jewellery at ‘discount prices’ which we had no idea whether they were discount or not but that is what happens when you are a tourist. You don’t have to buy anything; in fact we didn’t but not because it was expensive or not nice but just because most was set in yellow gold which I don’t wear very often and it was hard to get a look in among the grey nomads that were swarming around the counter so I just gave up trying. There were some pretty stones though. I even found a little chip of bluish green opal while fossicking! Not enough to use for jewellery but a keepsake anyway
Our tour guide was locally born in Collarenabri and she loves Lightning Ridge. She even has a claim of her own but a miner works it for 70% of the profits. She has made about $15,000 or so I believe.
After the tour we headed off to Armidale via Collarenabri, Moree, Graves End and Glen Innes. The country was flat and lifeless for a long time and it was again, the road less travelled. However as we got closer to Moree, things livened up. There were actually a few trucks and cars coming the other way and the road surface was better with no pot holes. We got to Armidale by about 6.45pm and I was thrilled when the Vodafone connection was available as the mobile phone coverage along the way had been scant. In fact, Optus was still dodgy in our room but this connection has been fine. Thus, the BLOG update! More piccies when we have broadband again. Meanwhile check out my Webshots album. My username is buglady02 for those that don’t already know and I have put a lot of photos from the trip there already.Enjoy!

From Parkes to Lightning Ridge

We left Parkes at a respectable hour and travelled via the Newell and Castlereagh Highways to Lightning Ridge. It was a good run especially once off the Newell. We left all the semi-trailers behind and the traffic was decidedly light until closer to our destination. It is obviously the road less travelled! We certainly saw less of the grey nomads heading north.
The country side was quite different as we headed along the Castlereagh. It was much drier and very flat. Trees were eucalypts mainly but what I did notice was that there was no mistletoe in them which is quite common elsewhere. Also, the number of birds reduced as we got further along but earlier there were quite a lot of hawks or other birds of prey hovering near the roadside. Obviously, the greeener sections support more wildlife and hence predators. I would love to try to photograph those magnificent birds one day!
We had a nice lunch in a cafe in Coonamble and passed the turn-off for "Come By Chance" twice! I love the names of towns in Australia. That one is an easy one to say but some others sure take a bit of practice to get your mouth around!
Hotel-Motel here is good; free wireless internet access (big plus! - uploading photos to Webshots), restaurant (basic fare but reasonable), they book tours, and the pub right next door. We have booked a 3 hour tour for the morning after a brief look around town this afternoon.

Photos uploaded

I have uploaded some photos to previous posts as well as put some on my Webshots album so you will need to scroll down to see what has changed. In time there will be more.

Off we go again!

Well, we headed off early this morning (7am) on a wet and cold Melbourne day. It cleared up as we went so I am not sure whether that happened at home too but I hope so. Was thinking of all the people at kinder and how they would be coping with a wet morning confined indoors!
I hope it all went well Chris and Ange!

Tonight we are in Parkes again and tomorrow head to Lightning Ridge, opal country.

I put the zoo photos up on my Webshots page so if you want to see them go to my Webshots Album Will add more eventually but it's going to take time with dial-up as my main connection! Didn't get time while I was home so briefly.

Internet is fixed!!

Thanks to the persistence of Haitham, the very patient Vodafone support technician, we seem to have our Vodafone modem working again. It took many hours of phone support and trying various things because Windows Vista is not very compatible with lots of things yet. (Don't get me started on Vista!!) However, lets hope it continues to work properly. Worried that Windows updates will stuff it up again but cross your fingers for us!

Parkes, Grong Grong and Narandera

We left Dubbo and headed to Parkes to take a look at the radio telescope there. Remember the movie about it called, "The Dish"? They actually did play that game of cricket up on the dish you know - it really is huge! It was some kind of special weekend so there were a lot of keen astronomy type people visiting and talking about all the planets, stars, etc they have seen or something. Fin and I had a look at the displays and the dish etc., took photos, had a lovely devonshire tea in The Dish cafe then kept going to Grong Grong.
At Grong Grong, we got directions to the little cemetary there and paid our respects to Ian and Aunty Thelma.
Following this we took a look at the old farm from the other side of the creek. The farmhouse looks deserted but the property looked good in general and the old 'beach' was still there as well as the tree laying on it's side and growing it's big branches straight up. The boys used to play on the beach in the sand and also on that tree. It brought back many good memories! We drove over the bridge and looked at the front gate and beyond then back across and took the back road into Narrandera. When we were nearly in town we saw a group of kangaroos not far from some houses; and they didn't even startle as we passed. Aah, the country!!
We stayed at a motor inn (motel) opposite the Ex-servicemen's Club and they had $8 roasts on Sunday night so guess where we had dinner? It wasn't big on ambience but the food was pretty good!

Jenolan caves & Zoofari

Jenolan Caves
We headed off early to Jenolan to do a cave tour today. We had been told all of them were worth seeing and the brochure sure made each sound interesting so it was just a case of pick one that was at the time we could get there. There were three tours available, all taking an hour and a half and we chose the Orient cave.
The drive to Jenolan was windy and sometimes narrow and the air outside was freezing but the views were very pretty and you could certainly see why they were called the blue mountains. We were surprised to see that they close off the road we used for a period each day too. I’m glad we got through first!
The Orient Cave tour was fascinating and beautiful. How those crystals form in such pretty shapes; long strands, ribbons, domes etc., and of course the stalagmites, stalactites, and helectites (twisty shapes)? We were surprised how warm it was inside the caves after the cold air outside. Warm and humid of course, and there was quite a bit of stair climbing to do which was more strenuous than you might expect. Some fairly narrow bits too. I took lots of photos (surprise, surprise!). It was tricky because the ceiling is very high in the orient caves and to illuminate that high I needed to use my external flash but then it is so bright, you can lose the delicate lighting provided which is often shining through the transparent crystals.
We had quick lunch in Jenolan and then headed for Dubbo, checking our booking sheet for the Western Plains Zoo only to discover that we had to be there between 2 and 3 pm. No way would we make it by then so we had to call the zoo and tell them. We got there just before 5pm and had missed the first tour of the Zoofari experience which was upsetting. It has been a difficult and emotional couple of days trying to reorganize our itinerary to possibly get home again for a funeral and many phone calls to and from family. It did kind of preoccupy our thoughts!
Fortunately for us, the zoo staff offered to allow us to do the missed tour the next day if we would like which then presented another change of plan but we decided it would be worth it and made arrangements.
Western Plains Zoo
The zoo staff welcomed us to the Zoofari lodge, filled us in on procedures, gave us the menu so we could choose dinner for that night and showed us our cabin/tent. It was quite comfortable with a heated floor, bathroom, tea & coffee making facilities, fridge; everything you need really. Dinner was very nice. Three courses served at our own table; that is Giraffes, which is what our tent/cabin was called. After a very filling dinner we went on our night tour and saw the hippo, wombat, Galapagos tortoise, maned wolves, and cheetah. Who ever knew that Galapagos tortoises like being rubbed under the chin? Or that wombats like sweet potato but will chew your jacket sleeve if you leave it hanging over the edge of the enclosure? The tour guide, Helen, was fantastic. There were a lot of excited children on our bus but she managed them very well. I guess working with animals (and visitors) for so long has given her great skills in that area. After the tour all the families took their children off to bed and we had a leisurely cappuccino and chat to the guides, Helen and Greg. Then off to bed since we had to be read for our morning tour at 7.15am! A hearty cooked brekkie was at 8.30am after the tour.

The morning tour was great! We fed some currajong to a black rhino, fed a Bongo (no, not a little drum!), a pretty stripy kind of antelope, had a look at the Siamang (largest of the gibbons) on their island, and fed the giraffes. That was the best bit! I love giraffes and to be so close to them and actually let them take carrots out of your hand with their long tongue was just amazing!
After breakfast it was time to pack up and book out of Zoofari but we could spend the day at the zoo which we did.

After organizing our accommodation for that night in town, we got bikes to ride around (free as part of Zoofari) then went for a look around. We managed to catch a lot of the “African elephants talk and demo” which was incredible. The things those huge animals can do is very impressive. The elephants known as Yum Yum and Cuddles pushed over tree stumps, kicked soccer balls, pulled ropes etc. They are very good at following instructions. Next we went to see the Siamang again, knowing it was feeding time and they usually put on a good singing display. We were not disappointed! Mum and dad sang with vigour and baby got very excited and ran around, did somersaults, swung from ropes, climbed and generally showed off, often landing near or on dad to get his attention. It was hilarious! We finished our ride around then went to have some lunch before another brief look prior to our late afternoon make-up tour.

This tour was well worth staying for – we saw the elephants put away for the night, had a few things shown and explained to us by their keepers, saw the tiger put away also and try to get meat out of huge ball with holes in it much like a Kong that you might give your dog, watched the wild dogs get fed – what a noise they make! And finally, went to see the lions being fed. There were two lionesses and a lion. They were so beautiful and you can’t help comparing them to a domestic cat when they are waiting for their meat and then jump up to get it out of the tour guide’s tongs (no, you don’t use your hand with lions!). We were very close but at a safe distance of course. One of the main rules during Zoofari is that you must never be tempted to touch the animals. They are still wild animals and still very dangerous! We were so glad we stayed to do the tour we missed. It was a truly wonderful experience and I encourage anyone who loves zoos and/or wild animals to come to the Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo and spend a couple of days or do the Zoofari if you can because it is well worthwhile.
http://www.zoofari.com.au/bwWebsite/
We stayed another night in Dubbo and planned to head off in the morning to Narrandera via Parkes radio telescope and Grong Grong where we spent many a happy holiday at my aunt ‘s farm.

Lithgow – Blue Mountains

Glow worm tunnel
After a chilly night in our cabin in Lithgow(glad we brought extra blankets!), we went to the Information Centre and enquired about the Glow Worm tunnels, Zig-Zag Railway and Jenolan caves. We got terrific directions and maps and went off to the Glow Worm tunnel first, taking our thermos and food with us since we knew we couldn’t get any food or drinks there. The main part of the road is an unmade section spanning 32km. It was wet with potholes (puddles) at first then became dryer but more challenging. We were glad to have our all-wheel drive Suby to do this trip! The first tunnel we came to is one you drive through; not the one with the glow worms and we were quite surprised how long, dark, curved and narrow it was.

Eventually we arrived at the parking area for the glow worm tunnel. Aah, a loo! How convenient. OK so it was called a Windy Loo and was just that – rather airy, made of metal with mesh at the lower parts of the walls. It had signs explaining it is a composting toilet so I guess that explains the design of the building. Next there was a walk to the glow worm tunnel; a sign described it as a 1 hour return walk for moderately fit people. It was a decent walk and very pretty too. Occasional little water spills over the rocks and a creek below babbling merrily along, eucalypts, pink heath, little wattles, and birds that were too quick to see but we could certainly hear them. There was a billabong below at one point where we could hear persistent male frogs calling for a mate. Despite the ideal bush surrounding, we couldn’t get carried away with it all and needed to watch where we were stepping or risk an injury. I was sure I would do something being so into looking at the surroundings, trying to pick the next photo aspect etc but it was Fin who slipped and hurt his ankle. He recovered fairly quickly but it reminded me to keep my eye on where I was putting my feet. There was a little suspension bridge to cross then a set of wooden steps up between rocks and finally we got to the tunnel.

A torch is totally necessary to see where you are stepping in there. It is very black as you get further in and the ground is uneven with puddles and even some left over rail from the rail track that must have been through there originally. Once far enough in you can turn off your torch then wait for your eyes to adjust and look up at the twinkling glow worms on the ceiling and walls. Some quite low to the ground. I attempted to photograph the little spiders/beetles that are the glow “worms” but they are tiny and it was hard to focus by the light of the torch. It was really amazing to see the little twinklers and wonder at how they all seem to glow in groups together, like frogs all call then stop at once. Must learn more about them. It was a very cold day and even colder in the tunnels so if you plan to do something like this especially in winter, remember to rug up! We did, but it was still freezing and our cuppa soup went down a treat when we got back to the car.
Link to information about the glow worm tunnel: http://www.infobluemountains.net.au/rail/upper/glow_worm.htm

Zig Zag Railway
Next we went on the Zig Zag Railway, hailed as being an engineering masterpiece designed to

travel the steep descent into the valley via old steam train on the original line constructed in 1869 We just got there in time for the last full trip which goes from Clarence station to Top Points station where the engine changes ends to take the train down to Bottom Points station where it filled up with water and changed ends again. It certainly was a different era to the hustle and bustle we are used to now. You would have had to be patient but I guess when you didn’t know any different, you would be. I said it was cold at the glow worm tunnel but by the time we got off the train it was freezing! Well, it was 6 degrees outside at about 4.45pm. Another cold night expected me thinks!

Break in Trip – Sad news from home
We will be going home on Monday till Wednesday due to a death in the family. ( It will give us time to sort out the mobile internet problem too. )

Rest In Peace Richard – your suffering is over.

Our deepest sympathy to Jen and Richard’s family.