Advertisement
Published: February 23rd 2014
On the first of January we headed off for Night Cap National park, where we went to see a big waterfall. There was just -again- no water in the falls, which of course was a shame. It was a little too late to embark on any of the hikes around in the park, and in addition we were starting to run low on water, so instead we went to the nearest picnic area, cooked lunch and chilled around reading in our books. It was a relaxing spot, and was nice to sit calmly around not having to worry about hitting the road straight after cooking. After having been seated here for some time, some goannas started crawling around on the ground, coming fairly close to us, so several times Christian had to get up in order to scare them off. That was quite interesting to sit and watch these bigger reptiles close up, though after some time we packed up our gear and headed for the road again. We continued to Lismore, where we had arranged to meet up with Louise’s friend Becky. Unfortunately she couldn’t meet up before the following day, so we hung around Lismore for the time being.
We found a nice walk in the middle of a living area, where apparently there were to be seen platypuses, however we did not see any that evening. The next morning we drove out to Rous Mill to meet Becky. It was amazing for Louise finally to meet up again after not having seen her friend for more than 5 years.
We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast with poached fresh eggs and herbs from Becky’s garden. The two girls had a fair bit to catch up upon, so we sat around for a longer time, before heading off to the beach. Here we went for a nice long walk, first in the bush land and then after a while up on some high cliffs overlooking the ocean. It was a fantastic view, though unfortunately we forgot the camera in the car. Afterwards we went into Lismore town, in order to go to a market to buy fruit and vegetables. Then we went to a cozy little café, where we met two of Becky’s friends for a drink. In the evening we enjoyed a nice oven cooked chicken after having taken a very refreshing bath in the nearby creek. We enjoyed
very much being able to use all of Becky’s kitchen equipment, and especially the oven and the blender was a hit. We sat around chitchatting all evening though turned in fairly early due to tiredness. Once again we were lucky enough to have a big comfortable bed to sleep in, and especially Christian had his difficulties getting out of bed in the morning ;-)
After Christian finally got his ass moving on the second day we went for a nice little hike in a rain forest nearby with a wonderful waterfall at its end. Although the basin at the bottom looked very tempting we could not go for a swim since it was not allowed in order to protect frogs and other animals :-(. On the way back to Lismore we stopped at a pie shop which Becky said is a must do thing in Australia, so we each ordered one. Christian got a pepper steak pie and Louise bacon & chicken. Basically it is a hot paste of any flavor with pieces in it which is baked into a little pie shaped bread dough but it was very yummy! After we finished our lunch snack we went buying
Night Cap NP
Waterless waterfall - beautiful neverthelessthe ingredients for Christian’s Christmas cookies which he was really eager to bake since we finally had access to an oven ;-) and also for our dinner. We were invited to some of Becky’s friends for the evening and the deal was that everybody brings something over so we could share everything. Becky and Louise therefore decided to make their favorite tomato mozzarella quiche which they have often done back in Switzerland and they were really excited about it ;-). The only problem about doing this down here is that any kind of cheese and especially mozzarella is very expensive in comparison to back home, but since Becky’s garden provided nearly for all the other ingredients it was no problem. But before returning to Becky’s place we also quickly stopped by at her university where there was a sanctuary for sick koalas and one could spot some of them in the eucalyptus trees nearby. Louise was very happy about that and it was hard to get her back into the car so we could leave in order to prepare everything for the evening. While Christian was enjoying preparing his Christmas cookie dough and baking it, Becky and Louise were busy
preparing the quiche and we finished just in time to leave for our dinner appointment. Becky’s friends were really nice and we ended up sitting on the balcony/terrace having fresh salad, humus with carrot bites and our tomato mozzarella quiche while talking about god and the world. After dinner we also tried our skills in a round of Pictionary which is basically the same as “Activity” just only with drawing pictures which your team has to guess right. We were also really surprised that it is very common in this area of Australia to rent a whole house as students and share it because it is affordable.
The next day Christian slept very long until midday while Becky and Louise got up early and started their day with swimming in the before mentioned creek (it’s just the best to do in such a hot climate ;-) ) using their time alone to catch up on the past few years since they met last. Once Christian finally also got up and had his breakfast we all went shopping for a cozy movie afternoon/evening but unfortunately couldn’t get a hold of “The Hobbit 1” which we really wanted to watch before
going for the second part which was in the cinema at that time. Nonetheless, we bought some gin, strawberries and nachos and had a cozy afternoon anyway enjoying strawberry daiquiris and nachos with cheese. Also Becky’s house mates joined us that day which was really nice and we again went down to the creek in the early evening to cool us down. As a late dinner we decided to have some kangaroo steak which Becky had in her freezer and it was really interesting and good. It had a very intense taste and reminded us slightly of deer.
Sunday was upon us, and in Lismore that means Market Day. So we started the morning with a fast breakfast before heading in to town. It was a very interesting market with all sorts of stalls, though not with as much fruit and vegetables as Louise had hoped for ;-) Christian got himself some books, a pair of bathers whilst Louise and Becky just strolled around looked at all sorts of stuff. In the afternoon we went for cooling swim in another nearby swimming hole, this time Rosie joined in. It was a very cool place where one could jump into
the hole from some very high cliffs, though only Christian as man enough to go for it (from the kids jumping platform ;-)) The girls just swam around and got cooled down from the very hot summer day.
Unfortunately the next day was our time to leave and we packed up our car while waiting for the laundry to dry which we luckily could wash at Becky’s place. Since we planned to meet Becky again a few days later in order to go to some inland national parks it was not a very hard good bye. On Becky’s advice we headed from Lismore to Yurragir National Park. Although it slowly got dark while we were still driving we continued since we wanted to reach our destination in order to start the day early in at the national park. At one point our road also suddenly stopped and ended at a ferry station without further warning and Christian already wanted to turn around but Louise realized that the ferry was free of charge and actually part of our route, so we continued until we finally arrived at the national park camping ground. There we encountered the problem that there was
no possibility of paying the fee for entering the national park due to the time of the day and stupid how we were :-) we turned around in order to sleep in McClean, the next town, which was around 20 minutes away since we were too afraid of getting fined the next morning because of not having a valid permit. The next day we learned at the local national park office that we could also easily pay the moment a ranger arrives the day after … Ah well…
We once again drove back out to Yurragir NP which is located next to the ocean. We had a nice breakfast and then just rested and read in our books for some time before heading off for a nice walk in the bush and on the beach. We jumped into the waves and really enjoyed the cooling feeling of the wild waters. Afterwards we headed back for cooking and suddenly two big kangaroos jumped by, which was really cool! We enjoyed a very beautiful sunset over an inland lagoon, and Christian then got a bun fire going, over which we then made stick bread. We sat and enjoyed a bottle of
Night Cap NP
Wild life 5 - Look how big the Guanos get wine underneath the stars for a bit, whilst reading in our common book before turning in. The next day we headed for Brooms Head, where we went for a long walk on the beach and then sat in the car relaxed whilst the rain poured down outside. In the later afternoon we drove to Grafton where we the next day had scheduled meeting up with Becky once more. For dinner we grabbed a takeaway pizza and watched friends in the car, just enjoying not having to hide due to sleeping legally on a rest stop area just outside town.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.082s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0494s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
