Blogs from New South Wales, Australia, Oceania - page 8

The South Coast region of New South Wales is the traditional home of the Yuin people, and the name Moruya is derived from an aboriginal word believed to mean "home of the black swan”. European settlement commenced in the 1820s following the extension of the limits of location in 1829. During World War 2, Moruya aerodrome was used as an advanced operational base. The trawler Dureenbee was attacked offshore between Moruya and Batemans Bay by a Japanese submarine on 3 August 1942. On 25 December 1944, the USS ... read more

With our daughter having to travel to New Zealand for four days for work (so soon after her overseas work trip to Vienna), we offered to head back to the Central Coast to help out with shuffling the grandkids around to pre-school. school and work, and cooking some meals. It was good to reconnect with the family, and fortunately, we were able to alter our travel bookings. After a week helping out, we headed back down south via Kangaroo Valley, where we stopped off for morning tea. We then continued our journey to collect our caravan from Cambewarra (near Nowra), where Kim’s sister-in-law had kindly offered to store our van for the week, and then on to a small coastal village called Broulee. We had never heard of Broulee, until we met up with some travellers ... read more

The Ulladulla area is a seven-kilometre stretch of continuous urban residential development from the southern edge of Ulladulla, through the town of Mollymook, to Narrawallee in the north. We stayed in the Holiday Haven Ulladulla Caravan Park, which is perched on a headland overlooking Ulladulla harbour. Our first port of call was to visit the harbour and swim in the ocean pool. We then drove to Warden Head lighthouse to take in the panoramic views up and down the coast. Mollymook beach was our favourite place for an ocean swim. There were also rock pools to snorkel in around the headland heading towards Collers Beach. The ocean temperature was still surprisingly warm. We spent many hours walking around the many rock shelfs in the Ulladulla area looking for fossils. The Ulladulla rock shelves are famous for ... read more

It was less than a half hour drive to Lake Conjola, our next planned south coast stay. Being too early for our caravan park check in, we kept driving through to the picturesque town of Milton, where we topped up on groceries. In heading back to Lake Conjola, we noticed the numerous dead gum trees lining the road, evidence of a recent very hot fire. In researching the extent of the 2019 bushfires in the area, it was sobering to find out that Lake Conjola had lost 89 homes in that bushfire, including three lost lives. It was good to again be staying in the same caravan park as our friends Tracey and David. After setting up our caravan, we all enjoyed a swim in the lake channel that runs out to the ocean. The famous ... read more

After two days at sea we arrive in Sydney. In my humble opinion it is one of the most beautiful ports in the world. Some facts about Sydney; Sydney has over100 beaches. The Sydney Harbour Bridge is one of the longest steel arch bridges in the world, spanning about 1650 feet, which is especially impressive considering it was built in the 1930s. Sydney Harbour is also the world’s largest natural harbor. The harbor has a single entrance and covers an area of 11 miles. Due to its size, many animals and ocean creatures call Sydney Harbour home, including grey nurse sharks, weedy seadragons, Australian fur seals, bottlenose dolphins, and green sea turtles. We set the alarm for 6 am to watch as we manoeuvre towards the Opera House and Bridge. It is still dark but there ... read more