SUNDAY, MAY 25

Much better day of travelling today – we left at 8 a.m. again but before we got going, we stopped at Starbuck’s (yes, we’re back in Starbucks country – just wish it was Timmy’s though) for a coffee. Then, instead of heading back to the main highway, we headed down the coast. We stopped at

this lighthouse. While we were there, we came across a man with binoculars on a tripod – he was watching for humpback whales as they are just starting their migration. We watched for a while and John thought he might have seen something in the distance but he wasn’t sure.

We continued down the coast until we reached Forster Tuncurry where we stopped at the Info Centre. We found a couple of good road maps of the area and of the Hunter Valley and then John had a long discussion with the lady there about Canada, Australia and the United States. She was quite impressed to hear that we want to come back to Australia – there’s so many places we’ve heard about now that we’d like to see and some places we’ve been to that we’d like to see more of. The area we travelled through was called The Great Lakes – not as big as in Ontario but there were 3 quite large lakes very near to the ocean.

Had to stop for gas today – $1.53/litre now. However, we learned something (of course 5 days before leaving). If you buy $30 or more at either a Big W or a Woolworths (which is a grocery store here), there will be a bar code on your till slip. You can present that at a Caltex-Woolworths gas station and get an extra 4 cents/litre off the price. Too bad we didn’t know that before *g*

We saw a large number of these signs:

in a variety of styles. My guess is that by varying the sign, people might pay attention a little more. We did see two koalas asleep in trees (John saw one and I saw the other) but the road was too narrow and twisty to be able to stop safely.

On our way down the highway, we spotted a replica of Uluru – it was a truck stop (with restaurants, gas station and convenience store) that was done up to look like Ayers Rock. It was kind of strange but, of course, we had to take a photo of it.

We got to Pokolbin Hill at 3:30 and checked in with no problem. While talking to the lady at reception, she told us that she guarantees we will see kangaroos while we’re here as they feed in the grounds in the morning and evening. After putting all the stuff in the condo, we went for a walk. We saw ducks (who were following anyone who moved), swamphens, pelicans and horses but no kangaroos. I think we’re just jinxed. We’ll look again in the morning – especially since we’re still up between 6 and 6:30 a.m. each day. To make up for not seeing kangaroos, I’ll give you a photo of the fantastic sunset.

We’re not going to drive too much tomorrow but will probably check out a winery or two (and maybe a brewery too) as well as visit

The Hunter Valley Gardens (which are right across the road from the condos).

There is no internet access in the rooms here and I have to check to find out if there is internet in the office. If not, I’ll be looking for somewhere else to post this.

So far, we’re loving this area – it’s very pretty and there’s lots to do here.

Temperature: 20 C – sunny

MONDAY, MAY 26

Success!!! 

Kangaroos do exist in the wild *s*

John was up before 6 this morning and tried to encourage me to get up too but it was just too cold. He decided to go out and see if there were any kangaroos and while he was outside, he was startled by this (and came back to make me get up):

This hot air balloon was being inflated in the field right next to the condo. No kangaroos at this point, but we watched the balloon inflate and then take flight (For the record, I was wearing my jeans, 2 fleece tops, a pair of hand knit wool socks and my knitted headband – glad I had all those things with me).

After the balloon had flown away, we walked around the grounds looking for kangaroos with no luck so we jumped in the car and drove around the roads for a while (kind of like road hunting without guns) and eventually we were rewarded. The only problem was that they were quite a way from the road and didn’t seem motivated to move closer to us. We went back to the condo and decided to take one more walk around the grounds and guess what – there were 3 kangaroos feeding on the clover in the lawn. Two other roos were peeking through the trees and then went bounding up the treeline instead of coming onto the lawn. We watched the ones on the lawn for a while before heading in for breakfast.

Time to check out some of the wineries – the only problem was that we don’t have much time left to drink wine before we have to catch our flight on Friday. The first winery we went to was McGuigan Wines.

They had a cool old truck in front of the cellar door.

Then it was time to check out the Hunter Valley Gardens – when we identified ourselves as Canadian (a question that all the attractions ask), the lady at the ticket booth told us that the Gardens were inspired by Butchart Gardens. Apparently, the owner had been in Victoria and was so impressed with Butchart that he decided to try to do the same thing in the Hunter Valley. The gardens here are only 5 years old so they are not as established as Butchart but we really enjoyed them. One of the gardens is a Storybook Garden – it reminded me of the attraction that used to be outside Victoria (Beaver Lake or Elk Lake?) that had different nursery rhyme characters.

Once we had seen all the gardens (about 2 1/2 hours) we went to the Blue Tongue Brewery – we couldn’t resist the name or the logo. We bought some of their lager and premium light beer – it’s pretty good. We had thought about having lunch there but the menu was limited and not suitable for my allergy restrictions. Once the beer was in the fridge to cool, we walked over to the Hunter Valley Gardens area as there are shops there too. We had a fun time browsing through the stores and then headed to the reception area at the condo to enquire about internet access. The lady there told us there was a business centre at Sobels Wines so we drove down there only to find that they had no idea what she was talking about. We’ll try to post this on Tuesday when we go out for a drive towards the Blue Mountains.

Temperature: 19 C – sunny

TUESDAY, MAY 27

We saw more wild kangaroos – they really do exist. Today we saw them in a field beside the road to Singleton. The area near Singleton is a coal mining area – the open pits are huge and they don’t seem to have to reclaim the land.

We stopped at a gas station in Bulga to see if there were any road maps and were told to just follow the road – it’s picturesque. I think that’s another word for narrow with switchbacks *lol* The road we were on used to be the main road from the coast to the Hunter Valley – we didn’t think we’d see any transports on it but we were wrong. There was one spot where we could pull off the road and we had our first glimpse of

the Blue Mountains.

It seems that a lot of the mountain roads here are built on top of the mountain ridges – there were times that both John and I were looking down very steep slopes.

A little further along the road, we saw these sandstone cliffs.

I thought the designs were so cool. Then we rounded a corner and found these fantastic gates

– wonder what the monastery looks like…

Our first look at the canyons in the Blue Mountains reminded us of the Grand Canyon.

It took 4.5 hours to get to Lithgow and then we started back towards Katoomba. We were looking for lookouts but most of them didn’t seem to be marked and we only had a basic map for most of the area. We did find one lookout at Mt. Piddington and it had

a fantastic view of the area back towards Lithgow. The mountains really do seem to be blue and there is a haze over them (from the eucyluptus trees) that almost looks like smoke.

When we got near to Katoomba, the lookouts were marked a little better. We stopped at Cahill’s Lookout and had a good view of

Boar’s Head Rock. A little further on was the Eagle Hawk lookout. There were fantastic views of the Three Sisters formation and the

Blue Mountains Skyway –

I decided I wasn’t brave enough to try this tram ride. On to Katoomba, where we were disappointed to find that in the lookout area, parking costs $4.00/hour. By the time we battled the large crowds of tour groups to get close enough to take a photo at the lookout,

we were almost out of time. There was an information centre at the lookout so we went looking for a map – surprise, they didn’t have any free maps and the souvenirs were really expensive.

Back on the road again, it was after 3 and we knew we’d better start back to the Hunter Valley as it would be a long drive. As we still didn’t have a very good map, we were depending on road signs. Once we were on the M2 motorway, we discovered that the signs just had road names and not where they led to. We were almost into Sydney when we spotted a sign for the turnoff to Newcastle. Of course, it was a toll highway (only $2.20) but at least we were heading in the right direction. We finally got back to the condo at 6 p.m. (and it was dark – it gets dark at 5 here right now).

Still haven’t found anywhere with internet so we’re heading to Maccas in Cessnock today to see if they have wireless internet.

Since yesterday was spent sitting in the car, today is going to be a day for a walk as well as getting the laundry done and the stuff packed up.

Temperature: 22 C – sunny