Ray and Jeanne in Oz
Episode 8: Farewell To Oz and Best Of Oz List
Three Sisters, Blue Mountains
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Monday 8 March
2004 Curl Curl NSWWell, this is the last letter from
Australia. We leave tomorrow, 9 March, to fly to Kuala
Lumpur. We haven’t made any firm plans but at this point
we are leaning towards a relaxing stay at a beach resort,
as long as we can avoid the rainy season weather.
We left Canberra in wet, cool weather and drove back
to the coast. With more rain forecast, we opted for a
hostel rather than a tent site in the small resort town
of Ulladulla. Since we were not going to the beach, Ray
took Priscilla to a local garage and had her all checked
out. She passed her pink slip test with flying colours.
That means she could be sold without needing any
mechanical repairs.
The rain let up enough in Ulladulla for us to take
some interesting coast walks. The local Aboriginal
community, in collaboration with other environmental
groups, constructed several Kms of walkways through the
bush. As well as viewing the coast from several lookouts,
we learnt about the history of the area from the
Aboriginal viewpoint from carved wooden signs placed
along the pathways.
The Aussie have been unfailingly friendly and helpful
and the hostel manager in Ulladulla was no exception.
When he heard we liked seafood and intended buying local
oysters for dinner, he insisted we take a snapper he had
caught to complete our meal.
The weather still wasn’t great when we left Ulladulla
to travel a little farther north towards Sydney. We got
as far as another small beach resort, Gerringong where we
stayed at a YHA hostel on property owned by the Uniting
Church. It used to be the manse, but the church built a
more modern home for their minister and the original
became a small hostel. This church group is very
enterprising. Besides the hostel they run a meeting hall,
a lodge for school groups and have a retirement residence
in town.
When the rain stopped momentarily, we went for a walk
on Werri beach, down a hill from the hostel. There we saw
our first rock pool constructed at one end of the beach.
The first of these pools were constructed in the early
1900s. They are carved out of the natural rocky shore and
bordered with a low concrete wall. The surf was much too
wild to consider even swimming in the pool that day but
normally they provide a safe and calm environment for
swimming. The pools have become a feature of many of the
towns along the coast both south and north of Sydney.
The weather finally turned for the better and I was
able to try out my new one-piece swim suit at Seven Mile
Beach. I had to finally throw out my worn-out suit I
brought to Oz and buy a new one. I first bought a two
piece number that proved less than suitable in the surf.
I had to hold on to it with one hand while managing my
boogie board with the other. Ray had a good laugh anyway.
The one-piece suit provided more modest swimming.
We wanted to visit the Blue Mountains on our way back
to Sydney and the Lonely Planet had an interesting write-up
of a Bird Observatory in the Barren Hills. This seemed to
be an interesting side trip. Like the Eyre Bird
Observatory, it is run by Birds Australia, so maybe that
was why no one was around at their park office even
though it was a Saturday. We did manage to find a trail
to take a nice two hour walk but there was no exciting
bird life to see.
We finished our walk too early for lunch so we drove a
little further until we spied picnic tables at
Robertson’s Famous Pies restaurant. It must be a great
place if the number of Saturday morning motorbike riders
was any evidence. 15 – 20 bikes were parked while their
riders munched pies. We were surprised that there was not
a Harley amongst them, all colourful Japanese models.
Cable Car over the Blue Hills
We had been warned
that the Blue Hills was liable to be crowded. It is the
second most visited spot after Sydney Harbour and the
traffic all the way attested to that. A train running
from Sydney up through the Blue Hills has made it
convenient for many Aussies to move up there.
Nevertheless we were impressed with the hills. We stayed
in a caravan park in the main town, Katoomba, our last
nights in our tent. The caravan park was in a great spot
right across the road from the walkways along the cliff
tops. We followed the paths to marvel at this mini Grand
Canyon all covered in green trees. The views were quite
spectacular and we managed to find trails away from the
hoards of tourists.
We drove into Sydney on March 1 as we were getting
concerned about the time it might take us to sell
Priscilla. We drove straight to the King’s Cross Car park
where we had bought Priscilla and made arrangements to
put her up for sale. The number of cars on offer and
talks with some of the owners did not make our task look
easy. It was off-season now and there were not enough
buyers to keep the prices up. Some people had been there
for more than a week and an underground car park is not a
great place to spend much time. We got a room in a nice
hostel right next door and made up ad sheets for
Priscilla and settled in to sell. All we needed was a
buyer.
A tradition had been started that required the lucky
seller of a vehicle to buy a case of beer to be shared by
those still waiting. Maybe that was why everyone stayed
upbeat and cheery. The first morning Ray took some of our
notices to downtown hostels while I manned our spot and
the second morning I went to visit the Sydney Museum of
Natural History while Ray stayed behind. He decided a
proactive approach was needed and helpfully greeted
everyone who seemed the least bit interested. It worked
and we bought the beer. We sold that day to two young
Danish girls for just $300 less than we had paid
initially. We had done so well that some of the others
wanted to hire us to sell their vehicles. Sometimes grey
hair and a certain maturity help.
That sale left us free for a
little R&R at Bondi Beach. We took the train and bus
out for an afternoon of swimming and sun. There were lots
of people on the long sandy beach but it was not overly
crowded. Ray was pleased to note that topless bathing has
not gone out of fashion. We had a good time body surfing,
the boogie boards were part of the sale package.
Bondi Beach in Sydney
We had not considered the surf to be too high or
dangerous but we were reminded graphically of the care
needed in swimming in strong currents. A young Asian boy,
swimming in the surf board section of the beach went
missing. The life saving team did find him but despite
their efforts, they failed to revive him.
Bill and Kay Brideau
Sydney Bridge
Selling Priscilla
also allowed us to finalize plans to visit Bill Brideau,
a fellow engineer who attended NSTC in Halifax with Ray
back in the 60s. Bill and his wife Kay live in Curl Curl,
one of the north shore communities two beaches north of
Manley. Curl is waves so
Curl Curl is lots of waves in Aboriginal. We took the
ferry from Circular Quay in Sydney to Manley Beach,
getting a harbour tour on the way. Despite not having
seen Bill since he left for Oz in 1970, Bill and Ray
managed to recognize each other at the ferry terminal.
Bill and Kay were super hosts.
We also enjoyed meeting their daughter Joanne who has
moved back home to return to Uni. The first afternoon we
went swimming in the surf at Curl Curl Beach and enjoyed
a great seafood dinner at Manley Beach restaurant that
night. We also had guided tours of all the scenic
headlands and beaches along the north shore.
Natural ocean pool at Curl Curl Beach
Giraffs seek shelter from the rain at
Sydney Zoo
The weather
Saturday turned rainy again, but it didn’t stop our day
at Taronga Zoo in Sydney. We saw a bird show where the
attendants fed several varieties of birds we saw in the
wild. I finally saw an echidna that had eluded me in the
wild and we saw the little platypus again. We admired
lots of other animals from Oz as well as other continents
but the best picture was a group of five giraffe, all
different heights, huddled together in the doorway of a
shed, peering out at the rain.
Sunday was Kay’s birthday and we were included in a
celebration dinner at the home of Rachel and Maurice
Loomes, close friends of Bill and Kay. The weather did
clear enough for us to walk in their garden and feed the
tame kookaburras.
Monday morning dawned nice and sunny again. Bill went
off to compete in an inter-club over 60 golf tournament
and Kay took us to several good spots to get our last
photo ops in Oz. Ray and Kay went for a swim at the beach
while I stayed back to write this last Oz epistle. We
will have dinner with the Brideaus once more, then return
to our hostel in the city to pick up the rest of our
luggage and prepare to fly out Tuesday afternoon.
We had a great time in Oz. We drove more than 26,000
kms and probably saw more of the country than most
Aussies have seen. The people have been terrific and we
have been impressed with the natural wonders.
Everyone asks us what was our favourite spot in
Australia. There were so many interesting places to visit
we cannot pick just one favourite. Instead, we have come
up with a highly subjective Best of Oz list. We could
probably add to it given more time but here it is now.
– Best East Coast Great Barrier Reef trip – Lady
Musgrave Island off Town of 1770 Qld
– Best West Coast Reef snorkeling – Coral Bay WA,
especially the Aquarium beach
– Best beach – MacKenzie Beach, near Bateman Bay NSW
– Best white sand beach – Whitehaven Beach,
Whitsundays Qld
– Best natural phenomena – Uluru (Ayer\rquote s Rock)
NT
– Best waterfall – MacKenzie Falls, Grampians Vic
– Best tree to climb – Centennial Tree, Pemberton WA
– Best stone arch – Admiral\rquote s Arch, Kangaroo
Island
– Best National Park – Cradle Mountain Tas
– Best biking area – Adelaide SA
– Best hike – Cradle Mountain Tas
– Best hostel in a city – The Annex of Backpacker
Oz, Adelaide SA
– Best hostel with pool – Tropic Days, Cairns Qld
– Best equipped Caravan Park – Porongurops WA
– Best Caravan Park pool – Tennant Creek
– Best evening entertainment – Bush Talk in Tennant
Creek
– Best half day excursion – Quad bike and snorkel
trip, Coral Bay WA
– Tamest wild animals – Dolphins at Monkey Mia WA
– Most eccentric town – Coober Pedy SA
– Most eccentric independent citizen – Prince Len of
Hutt
– Best Market – Queen Victoria market in Melbourne,
second place – Adelaide
– Best and greenest city center – Adelaide SA
– Best wine district – take your pick! They all had
more good wineries than we could visit
– Best spontaneous party – Melbourne Cup celebration
near Yungaburra Qld
– Most unusual roadhouse – Brewer’s Creek NT
– Most generous restaurant meal – Findlay’s Fish
BBQ, Kalbarri WA
– Coldest night in a tent – Blue Mountains NSW 6C,
followed by Cradle Mtn Tas 7C
– Hottest night in a tent – Northam WA
– Best hosts – All our hosts could not do enough for
us. We thank Carol and Eric Hobson in Adelaide, Paul and
Judy Galloway in Wagga Wagga, Jill and Brian Jones in
Canberra and Bill and Kay Brideau in Curl Curl
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Introduction