Day 5- birds birds and birds at the Hunter Wetland centre

We began our day on a skeptical note; I wanted to head to the museum while Del wanted to spend the day at the Hunter Wetlands Centre! With the constant rain, although I felt the museum was a safer bet, we still headed for the Wetlands, hope against hope to have some good bird sightings!

The day started with heavy showers.

However, as soon as we reached the Centre, the rain suddenly abated, as if the rain Gods took pity on Del and fulfilled his ardent desire to be with the birds! It must be said, that this indeed is a feature of the weather at NSW, unpredictability at its best! At the Centre, with a map in our hands and mosquito repellent cream applied over our exposed body parts, we made our way to the birds.

It was sheer joy seeing different species of birds, especially, the swans who kept crossing over the path  from the BHP pond to the Brambles pond to and fro! The little chicks of the ducks were the cutest of all! They were tiny and yet so elegant in their moves in the water!

We first embarked on the Discovery Walk to see the various birds among the different swamps. It was inspiring to note that from being a dump ground, this forty five hectare site was converted into a Conservation Centre by the dedicated effort of many people.

It was amazing to see ducks 'freckled ducks', a species of endangered ducks, which are also called the dinosaur ducks. These were the earliest ducks to evolve in the chain of evolution, all present days ducks and geese came after these ducks.

The endangered Freckled Duck

We also took the Rainforest walk, much of which seemed to be in the hot sun than rainforest foliage! Nevertheless, we enjoyed ourselves!

Various aboriginal sculptures that adorn the  centre

(Noon Session)

The Centre has a café, as well as, barbeque facilities. Visitors are encouraged to bring in their own food and to spend the entire day away from the city’s hustle and bustle and in the company of nature and its sounds. Feeling the leaves and breathing in the scents emanating from the crushed leaves of the aromatic plants, the grass, the soil and being one with nature is highly recommended.

After our well-deserved break for lunch, we worked on completing the remainder of our Discovery Walk. We spent some time at the Egret Tower observing the different species of birds living in harmony together. At the tower, there was an interesting note with words to the effect, “The Egrets make enough noise, and we don’t need to add to it!” The tower also exhibited drawings and paintings by children artists.

At the 'Egret Tower'

Soon it was time to head to the Visitor Centre as the place closes by 4pm. By the end of it all, our muscles were stiff and our legs refused to move. We were very grateful that the rains took a long break right until we reached our Motel, and before we knew it, the skies once again began celebrating with tears of joy!

We were delighted that through our five day trip, the weather Gods were very kind to us. The days that went by were indeed a kind of a journey that helped us connect to ourselves!

A few of the more than 35 bird species that we managed to spot. 

Day 6 : Return back home.

This was the day when we returned home, content over our travel and joyous over the opportunity of being able to explore another continent miles away from where we usually reside!
Our drive to Sydney from Kurri Kurri was about two and a half hours long via the Pacific Motorway and the Great Western Highway.

Day 4 at Blue Mountains- Cathedral of Ferns to a Drive in Theater.

Much of our day was spent driving transporting ourselves from Lithgow to Kurri Kurri ( Pronounced Curry Curry).

Nevertheless, we still managed to sneak in a short visit to a little village before we drove to our next destination.
Mount Wilson is a charming village with English styled cottages and gardens. Being at a higher elevation, it is not only cooler than Sydney, but also receives high rainfall making it a region comprising of rainforest vegetation. The roads on Mount Wilson are lined with trees that makes the drive very enchanting! Walnut and Chestnut farming are the main activities on this little mountainous village.

Our purpose of the visit was not only to enjoy the drive through the countryside, but also, to visit the Cathedral of Ferns, which is a short rainforest walk. Although, this was our easiest walk, it was indeed the most beautiful of all!

Fern Fern everywhere, at the Cathedral of Ferns

Walking through a path covered with ferns, the earthy smell of the humus, the freshness of the air, the different shades of green, the tall trees, all of which kind of made us inebriated with freshness and joy!  We felt more and more rejuvenated with every step that we took into the forest. It was thrilling to stand among giant trees and look up through their canopy into the sky where the rays of the sun were struggling and battling their way through! We saw a giant tree that lay dead because of the lightning that struck it in the recent past.

Dwarfed by the Giant trees

We spent about an hour and a half or so at the place and rather unwillingly began our journey towards Kurri Kurri.

Since we decided to take the Putty Road, a rural sealed road which made for a beautiful drive as it took us through the Wollemi National Park on the left and the Yengo National Park on the right, it took us longer as compared to the route via the Great Western Highway and the Pacific Motorway. Interestingly, we also drove through some unsealed roads which were part of the Kurrajong Discovery Trail.

The Putty road

We had our lunch at one of the designated rest areas on the Putty Road. This road had only a couple of food joints. So either one would need to carry sufficient food and water or necessarily stop at the first café or restaurant cause the next one would be a long way away (distances between food joints range from 50 to 100 kms or even more).

The Putty Road finally led us to the Hunter Valley Region; an area famous for its wines the world over! The drive through this part of the countryside was one of our most beautiful drives. Driving through acres of grape vine plantations with intermittent cottages dotting the landscape made for a pretty sight. The fatigue of our long drive on Putty Road nearly vanished as we drove through the plantations, imagining the enhanced beauty of the place when the grapes are ready for harvest!
The drive was indeed refreshing and seemed relaxing even as we drove through the little town of Kurri Kurri where we booked our stay at the Kurri Motor Inn for two nights.

Driving through the picturesque Hunter Valley- Known for its wines.

The motel was conveniently located next to the town centre. We felt very welcomed by the locals here. It’s a small town comprising of about 6000 residents and yet, has all the amenities of the city; even supermarkets like Coles and Aldi had their outlets there! The board of a little store which had books as well as, gift items had a message to the effect, “If you are tired and it’s too hot outside, please do not hesitate to walk in and relax.” We spotted yet another store selling rodents along with the other usual meats!

The Kurri motor Inn

The town of Kurri Kurri indeed struck a beautiful balance between the modern and the ancient!
Inspite of our journey and a lovely walk through the town, our day was far from over. We were excited about our first drive-in theatre experience at the Heddon Greta Drive-in with a tag line, “If you don’t like the movie… Slash the seats!” They have two to three shows that run on every Friday and Saturday evening except for, on school holidays where they run the show through the week.
We went for the first movie of the evening, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. We carried Don’s portable FM radio to listen to the audio of the movie on the particular FM channel on which the movie was aired.  The movie wasn’t great but it certainly was an unique experience to be sitting inside the car (the constant rain wouldn’t have it otherwise) munching on hot chips from their decently stocked café and watching the movie on a huge screen unlike the regular claustrophobic seating in the theatres with volumes that reverberate through my brain cells! Yes, blame it all on the electro sensitivity of my body!

Waiting for the movie to commence- while grey clouds amass in the skies.

It was a coincidence of sorts to watch a movie that was set in India, to be staying in a motel that was run by Indians and Del and I are Indian too, all of this, while we were in the little town of Kurri Kurri! As we left the drive-in theatre content with the day that was, our thoughts wandered about our plan for the next day since the rain finally begun playing spoil sport.

Day 3- Noon- Jenolan Caves

Back at the motel, we had our lunch and after some well-deserved rest, we embarked on another trip to the scenic Blue Lake. The drive was part of the Jenolan Discovery Trail. The Jenolan Caves road is very curvaceous and steep which only increased the thrill of our drive! Our desire was to spot a Platypus in the Blue Lake!

The Blue Lake is a man-made lake which was created for the generation of electricity.
At the lake, we spotted a couple of fish, but couldn’t spot a single Platypus! The loop walk around the lake is indeed a romantic and soothing one; it was one of our more pleasant walks.

Although, the place is famous for the Jenolan Caves, which rank among the oldest caves of the world, about 340 million years old; I was low on the fitness levels needed to negotiate the network of caves given the number of stairs that had to be ascended and descended over and over again. The caves are known for their stalactite and stalagmite formations. We did see some of the stalactites in the first cave which is next to the Grand Arch (a fascinating rock formation under which one drives through to reach the car park).

The Jenolan Caves area is indeed a very pristine spot! There is something mysterious and magical to the place, especially, when one realizes how ancient the caves are! As much as we were left awestruck by the little that we saw, we were soon brought back to reality with the sounds of thunder accompanied by a light drizzle. We wished to stay on but were left with little daylight time to negotiate the curvaceous Jenolan Caves Road.

-Aarina

P.S. : Just besides the Jenolan caves is the blue lake. After 5PM, when the caves close for visitors, the place becomes quite deserted and makes for a lovely evening romantic walk. The water of the lake is blue because light is refracted by the dissolved particles of limestone in the water. 

We were also, delighted to spot the colourful Fairy Blue wren 

The Blue Lake

Superb fairywren

Day 2 at Blue mountains - Megalong Drive

The reception at the Nepean River Park opened only at 9am. With our breakfast done with, bags packed and booted, we cleared our bill and left the place to begin with our adventures for the day.

We planned for the Megalong Valley which formed one of the spokes of the Blackheath Discovery Trail. We drove through the rainforest of Blackheath Glen. The drive was truly mesmerizing! We felt transported to a different place altogether. The air was magical, the smell of the greens and the soil, the huge ferns, the different kinds of foliage and their various shades, the rejuvenating air accompanied by the chirping of the birds truly felt like paradise! We wished for the drive to not end!

However, our thoughts were temporarily interrupted as we chanced upon an entrance to the rainforest at Coachwood Glen. It was a short 600m loop walk. However, I didn’t realise that it wasn’t a board walk which actually left me unprepared for what was to follow.

Within the rainforest, we walked through a narrow clearing which only kept descending down, mostly gently, but at times, abruptly until we finally reached a brook. The walk by itself was exhilarating! To walk among such thick rainforest foliage with the sound of flowing water was indeed refreshing, we felt awakened and alive!

Crossing the brook was a challenge for me, the slippery boulders only added to my woes! Once on the other side of the brook and mission accomplished, my heart was pounding hard in the realization of what would be had I to miss my footing! Well, this was not my only ordeal, three fourth into the loop, and we felt lost; we hadn’t memorized the map carefully enough. We knew we were close to the road, but simply couldn’t find our exit. I must say that fear did not culminate into panic simply because it was only after our trip that I heard announcements on the radio about a child being lost in the Blue Mountains forest for four days and a woman who fell off from the cliff being rescued only a day later!

Although this was a short walk filled with adventure, for me, it was a soulful experience!
We continued with the Megalong Valley Trail beyond the point where the sealed road turned into gravel and we drove up to the end of the gravel road. Nothing much to write about this section of the drive except for, the fascination of crossing over a well-marked ford. The drive on the gravel road was bumpy, dusty and not really scenic.

We stopped for lunch at the Old Ford Reserve. We saw quite a few of day campers, as well as, a couple of others who seemed to be staying there for a while. We enjoyed our lunch at the picnic table that was set up in the camping area.  We then headed to a nearby stream, soaking in the beauty of the surrounds. We were so struck by the clear waters of the lakes and rivers of Australia that it made us realise, that the constant presence of filth in our waters of India made cleanliness too a kind of attraction to us!

We spent some time by the stream pondering on the similarities of the gifts of nature bestowed to the two countries (India and Australia) and yet, the differences in the manner of our approach to the very gifts.

Later, we headed to our second accommodation, The Lithgow Valley Motel. The motel was conveniently located. At the motel, we were provided with a tetra pack of milk and had access to free Wi-Fi. The motel room was good, except for the absence of both a fan and an air-conditioner! Luckily, it wasn’t very hot. The quaint and cozy feel of the room made up for all that was amiss!

Noon Session
We headed for a point called Govetts Leap Lookout. This by far was one of the best lookout points we encountered on our drives. The bias could be due to the time of the day, it was about 5pm, with a lot of mist and fog settling in, cold wind blowing against our bodies, the spot being extremely scenic; all of this accompanied by a great seating arrangement with benches perfectly placed, overlooking the valley.

The thick foliage that covered the mountains coupled with the chill breeze and the waterfalls felt like in a fairytale world of woods and water! Being there at the moment meant so much, the freshness and beauty of nature simply overwhelmed us. It felt as if nature was talking to us!

There were a couple of treks with different levels of both difficulty and duration. We attempted the easiest, The Bridal Veil Falls, but gave up mid-way since the entire walk was only by stairs and my knees and hips seemed rather unforgiving. Taking in the beautiful views was the most I could do.
We drove to another point, The Pulpit Rock Lookout’. Part of the drive to this point was on unsealed roads. Out here too, we skipped the trek because it only involved the use of steps. There were long treks that one could take from Govetts leap to Pulpit Rock.

Although, we missed out on exploring the points, our drive was beautified by the presence of ducks walking across the road to get to the other side of their pond. It was rather charming to see a number of ducks sitting on the edge of the pond, on a fence, at such close quarters, with the water and the mountains creating a perfect background, and Del delightfully trying to capture this image with his camera!

With the sun going down fast, we decided to call it a day! Both the Govetts Leap and the Pulpit Rock form part of the Blackheath Discovery Trail.

Day 1 - The Glenbrook Trail

Part of the Glenbrook Discovery trail i.e. the Portal and Nepean Lookout was on the agenda for the afternoon.

The drive to Glenbrook was beautiful among trees and a few countryside houses. At the Glenbrook entrance to the Blue Mountains National Park, we had to pay an entry fee of $7 per vehicle. With the park gates closing at 7pm, we didn’t have much time on our hands.

We first headed for the Portal Lookout which overlooks the Cumberland Plain. From this vantage point, we could see the Victoria Bridge, the City of Sydney at a distance and a couple of other points. At the portal lookout, one could also venture into Abseiling.

Below, a two minute video clip of the drive, as we approached Portal lookout.

We were enjoying the quietude of the place right till a dinghy passing through the Nepean River spoilt it for us.

We then proceeded towards the Nepean River lookout. This point was a 600 meter walk from the car park on an unsealed road. The area here wasn’t gated and it was thrilling to be standing on a sheer cliff overlooking the gorge!

The sound of the rustling leaves in the gentle breeze, the birds chirping away joyfully and a great view filled us with a sense of contentment. We had our evening snacks on the rocks by the cliff; one of our dreams come true!

This experience did bring a wonderful close to our travels on Day one. However, the 10km drive from the Nepean lookout to the Glenbrook entrance gate wasn’t the most pleasant since we were racing against time before the gates were locked. Although, we did have a good one hour in our hands, the sun going down made us feel lonely on the unsealed road among the many tall trees.\

Once at the gates, it was time to look for the Active Holidays Big 4 Nepean River Park at Emu Plains. On reaching the park, we found the reception closed. A quick call later, we were told that the keys to our studio room was kept in an envelope with our name on it among the many other envelopes in a Safe which was outside the reception.

Our en-suite room was small but clean. We had our meal in the Studio’s shared kitchen. Since we were the only guests occupying a studio room, we had the well-equipped kitchen all to ourselves. A toaster, microwave, fridge, electric kettle, gas burners, napkins, cutlery, crockery, washing liquid in a kitchen with some furnishings did impress us. We were indeed pretty pleased with our choice of stay!

-Aarina
P.S. In this leg of our trip we also sighted some lovely birds- most of them were lifers for me. The most notable being the Kookaburra and the Bower bird. - Delson

Bower Bird (Female)

Kookaburra

Day 1 - Morning Session

We left from home at 7:30 am with butterflies in Del’s stomach, nervousness clearly visible on his face as he had to drive in an unknown place without Alvi or Don around to instruct him. However, after about an hour at the wheel, he was his usual self again, as if he was driving in India. Through the entire trip, Del could never stop expressing his delight over the driving conditions in Australia, beginning from the infrastructure, the planning of rest zones on the highway, clear signage and ending on the disciplined driving!

We took the Hume Highway and Via Picton headed towards the Thirlmere lakes; the roads took us through the Thirlmere Lakes National Park.

Our first stop was the Werri Berri Picnic area beside the Thirlmere Lakes. Although, the area is known for some good bird sightings, we were out of luck and managed to spot only the Scrub Wren. However, the view of the lake with the reflection of the trees in the water was simply mesmerising and completely made up for the lack of birds at the time. In the shallow waters, the river bed was clearly visible with a school of tiny fish swimming along.

Lakes generally survive only for a few million years before they get filled with sediment, however, the Thirlmere Lakes is about fifteen million years old and is grouped along with some of the oldest lakes of the world. It was rather delightful to have experienced such geographical history and beauty, both at the same place!

With nothing much to do, we headed for the Nattai State Conservation Area via the Barkers Lodge Road to the Burragorang Lookout. This was where we spotted the Crimson Rosella and the Gang Gang cockatoo.

Crimson Rosella 

Gang Gang Cockatoo

The Burragorang Lookout overlooks the Wollondilly River which meanders through a mountainous landscape creating a picture perfect shot. It lies over a private coal mine from where coal was exported; the mine was closed in 1991. Had it not been for the plaque which read that the area was a coal mine, it would be hard to tell.

The area has been beautifully restored and conserved. It made our hearts hopeful for our own state, Goa, given the kind of painful destruction of the environment that has taken place because of the unregulated mining activity. It will be fitting to state here that the kind of red craters that is seen on the landscape of Goa as compared to the green and refreshing landscape of Thailand that one sees during the plane’s descent is very disturbing. It is simply beyond my comprehension as to how greed of a few people can lead to such kind of massive destruction of the much needed Natural resources and Environment which belong to all.

This lookout too had a picnic area – tables and benches, gas fired barbecues and toilets (also called a “dunny”- an Australian slang for outdoor toilets).

We enjoyed our lunch in the same serene surroundings, delighted at having the birds at such close quarters with a lovely landscape of the river and mountains in the background.

The Thirlmere Lake and the Burragorang Lookout formed part of the Wollondilly Discovery Trail.

-Aarina

P.S. On our drive, we drove through some picturesque and historic towns like The Oaks, Picton and Thirlmere. Words, cannot do justice to the ambiance, character or mood of the place and it is best that I do not attempt to do that on this blog. -Delson