Just keep swimming... to Sydney

Hi there! It's been a whole week since you last heard from us, and it's been a busy week bip-bopping around New South Wales!

Sunday, February 15th

Following quite possibly the best Valentine's Day ever, we took a day to reset and get ourselves organized. We woke up just outside the town of Wollongong, to a very wet morning. It poured overnight, so our screens were quite wet and a little muddy. By morning, it had stopped raining but was gloomy and overcast, so we went shopping at the local MASSIVE mall. We finally bought actual plates (super cool collapsible camping plates), which is a significant upgrade from the empty tortilla package that we've been using as our plates, cutting board, and bowl thus far.

The next stop was to the local University library, where we pretended to be students once again and did some writing, reading and photo editing!

Katie's uncle Paul is a local expert in this area and recommended we check out the Scarborough Hotel for some food and views, both of which we thoroughly enjoyed!! The beer selection at the restaurant was not as tailored to our preferences as all of the breweries have been, so we opted for the one with the fish on its logo. The company is called Great Northern Brewing, which feels illegal to be able to be called that in Australia, but this beer competes with Coors Light. The rain stopped long enough for us to take this picture, eat our meal and sit for a couple of minutes, but not long enough to finish our beers, so we quickly ran inside, trying desperately not to spill one drop.

In the rain, we planned our next stop, the big city of Sydney and very uncharacteristically of us, booked a hotel! Our first night away from Olga!!

Upon arriving at the hotel, we started second-guessing why we were leaving Olga, as the hotel did not quite match the photos online, but for two nights, it would do! We went for a walk through the park just outside of our hotel and got our first taste of Sydney with really cool bats flying (just barely) overhead.

Monday, February 16th

After a peaceful slumber in our luxurious hotel in Sydney, we attempted to get ready for the day, but unfortunately, the hot water system at the hotel had different plans. While James braved the frigid shower temperatures, Katie opted to wait till later in the day when the front desk assured us it would be fixed. While James was frozen, and Katie was just a bit stinky, some good did come out of this failure: the hotel kindly comped our parking!

With our sporadic start to the morning underway, we boarded the train into the city. Our plan for the day was to explore the city, which, as always, began with finding a delicious breakfast. This proved to be an easy task, as all we had to do was follow the constant stream of suits out of the office buildings towards the shops. Our honest first impression of Sydney was that no one in the corporate hierarchy seemed to put in many hours...

With a tasty breakfast devoured, it was time for the main attraction, the Sydney Opera House. We made our way there through the botanical gardens, which were full of birds, particularly the Australian white ibis, or as the Aussies like to call them, “Bin Chickens”, a name bestowed upon them due to their favourite pastime of dumpster diving. Following the observation of several “Bin Chickens” at work, we made it to the Opera House!

It is an impressive building, with reflective tiles coating the exterior; it was even better that only a few hundred other tourists were milling around at the time. We looked to see if they had any shows on while we were in town, but nothing lined up with our timeline. With our sightseeing out of the way, it was time for us to hit a taproom so that we could sample the local staples and plan our next moves.  

Several pints later, we had our plan, we headed back to the hotel to repack the Thule & our luggage to further optimize our setup on the way up the coast. The organization was quick and efficient, with a refined system set up for Thule. 

We planned to make it to a Monday night trivia to work out our minds, and to taste a few more of the local liquid delicacies. Katie’s expertise at Scissor Paper Rock (as they call it in Aussie Land), came in handy, and we were able to sample an ample amount. She had won a free pitcher for our whole team of two. The trivia was really fun, but we began to realize that trivia with two people is a difficult endeavour; either the questions are designed for larger teams, or maybe we just aren't that bright. With many of our answers being slightly or more than off the mark, we ended in second last, BUT second last wins $25 to spend at the bar, so we got to take home a few more beverages to test out at a later date. While we might have been miserable at trivia, we did, however, come out positive on the money spent to money won ratio for the evening, and we considered it a wonderful success!

Tuesday, February 17th

Thankfully, after the evening samplings, the hot water did in fact work this morning, so we freshened up and then reunited with Olga. In store for today was a trip to the little-known, off-the-beaten-path, hidden gem of Bondi Beach.

On the way, we stopped at Thompsons Bay, a smaller beach off the cute (busy) town of Coogee. We walked down the picturesque street and grabbed some Lox in a Box bagels. They were very tasty with a very heavy schmear of cream cheese and made even better by a beautiful location to eat them!

Then we followed the masses of people to Bondi! The beach was nice, despite being very crowded, and we enjoyed watching the surfers trying not to run into each other, and the lifeguards yelling at swimmers to get out of the heavily current areas. We went for a really nice swim and walk, and enjoyed the sunshine. Despite the hot sun, the beach itself was surprisingly not hot on our feet! We later learned a really cool fact: many of the beaches in Australia have high contents of quartz/silica, which don’t get as hot as the beaches we're used to, which have higher proportions of calcium carbonate! There's your fun fact of the blog post! Oh wait, there's even more fun! The quartz/silica also makes the sand SQUEAK under your feet!

Then we headed inland! Our plan for the next couple of days was to explore as much of Blue Mountain National Park as we could! Another fun fact of the blog post (you're getting educated today). The Blue Mountains surrounding Sydney are called the Blue Mountains because of the eucalyptus forests! The sun hitting the eucalyptus leaves causes the excretion of eucalyptus oil, which reflects light and creates a blue haze over the surrounding areas!

Before getting to the National park, we made a game-changing decision for our road trip! We joined Anytime Fitness, which provides us access to gyms and, perhaps more importantly, showers all the way up the coast! After being subjected to very personal questionnaires just to join the gym, which James was very much not a fan of and asked multiple times if he really had to, we are officially members, and after only 3 visits, they finally got our key fobs figured out!

Then it was to the park! We headed to the little mountain town of Katoomba so that we would be close to the trails for the next morning. This also served as an opportune place to do some laundry, get some groceries and sleep in this really cool little park for the night, just a short walk away from a waterfall!

Wednesday, February 18th

We awoke to the peaceful noise of waterfalls tumbling down the steep moss-covered rocks next to the car. A great way to start, what would inevitably be a fantastic day. We planned to explore a slice of Blue Mountain National Park.

We started early to beat the crowds to our first stop, the famous "Three Sisters", a beautiful collection of rock pillars standing tall on the edge of a vast canyon. Thankfully, our plan paid off, and we got plenty of time to see the sights free from the incoming swarms.

Our second stop was a short hike, twisting down through rocky arid forest to a crystal clear pool, aptly named "Paradise Pool". Just as the heat of the day was starting to hit us in full force, we made it to the pool. It was extremely refreshing, and even frigid in the shadowy sections, but it was just what we needed.

We spent a few hours reading our latest book club material, "Empire of Pain", a tantalizing novel describing the works of a pharmaceutical family, largely responsible for the opioid crisis. Then, a few more chapters down, we decided it was time to brave the heat and continue on our journey.

The hike up from the pool truly felt like a walk in Australia; the sun beat down on us from the heavens, scorching our skin and making us seek any shade we could find in the sparse arrangement of trees along the path. Happy to report we made it back to the car intact, immediately blasted the AC, and headed to the gym for a cold shower.

After quick showers, we headed over to a brewery that specialized in both beers and barbecue! While sipping a pint and waiting for our brisket, smoked chicken, and street corn to be prepped, we planned out the next stops of the trip! It was only after our brainstorming session that we realized the brewery was hosting trivia that very night! We of course decided to stay and try our luck, and maybe, just maybe, do slightly better than we had the last time we played.

It turned out that doing marginally better at the trivia wasn't going to be difficult, the same company of the Monday night trivia also hosted the trivia at the brewery. With our strong advantage, we almost got all the answers right in round 1, somehow we had forgotten a few. We concluded that it would be better to try our luck at a round of pool and call it a night.

We headed out to a park to camp for the night, but in western Sydney, as we would discover, all the parks close at night with metal gates barring any entry. So we resorted to plan B, we found a quiet neighbourhood, threw the shades on, and attempted to get some shut-eye.

Thursday, February 19th

Our campsite for the night in the neighbourhood turned out to be not a great spot. It was very hot and humid, and our fans couldn’t keep up. Then, at 6 AM, a tractor woke us up, followed by the rest of the landscape crew. Tired, hot and delirious, we moved to a nearby park and took a nap with the AC on full blast. A bit less tired, hot and delirious, we headed to the gym for a cold shower, and now feeling even less tired, hot and delirious, we started driving to something that we were excited about before even arriving in Australia.

Well, actually, while driving, we realized that there are actually two destinations to see this phenomenon, and we were now driving not to the place that we had researched and were excited about, but the other...

But… we were going to see the glow worm tunnel! And while we didn't know what to expect at this glow worm tunnel, we were in it for the side quest!

This is a natural phenomenon where, in 1906, miners built a tunnel that didn’t end up getting used, but they soon realized that glow worms had moved in and they illuminated the tunnel, scattering the walls and ceiling, looking like constellations!! It was stunning!!! On the hike in, we crossed paths with a couple that was returning, and when we asked them how it was, they said “okay… there weren’t a lot of worms”, very sheepishly. We continued anyway, and we were very thankful that we did! There were SO many worms, so we have no idea what they were talking about!

We have to talk about the drive to the glow worm tunnel, though. It was the BUMPIEST road either of us had ever been on, between the grading, the pot holes, the dirt, cliffs, Google not registering that we were on an actual road, a pitch-black tunnel that we didn't know if it ever ended, just craziness, we nearly turned around a couple of times. Katie was getting nauseous and grumpy on the way in, but she was still stubborn, so we held out, and we are so glad we did! Just look how beautiful the worms looked! (again).

Leaving the glow worm tunnel was slightly easier as James had memorized the best path and got us out of there with only slight cases of shaken-baby syndrome.

The original plan was to head back to the coast and do a sunset hike, but it turns out that driving 15km/h to go 30km, navigating the bumpy road, makes it take a lot longer to get to a destination, so we instead just drove to the traihead and made the sunset hike a sunrise hike.

Friday, February 20th

Our aforementioned sunrise hike was a go, but a little bit later than we had planned. The hike went up a peninsula, navigating from a cozy little cove to a large crescent beach on the other side. Though we missed the sunrise in exchange for a couple more ZZZs, we did still make it to the viewpoints for the early morning light, and it was gorgeous!

We took much longer to get to the crescent beach than anticipated, slowed down by the potential owl just trees away, HOO-ing into the morning. While we didn't get to see it, we did get an amazing encounter with a very calm Laughing Kookaburra who let us within a metre of him!

We turned around and hiked back to the car, all was well, until we realized that the section of beach we had crossed to access the trailhead had submerged itself in the fast-rising tides. We popped off our shoes and found that it wasn't too deep, easily wadable to make it back to the car.

Crisis adverted we packed up and headed out, but not before stopping at a cafe for breakfast. "Cove" made a breakfast roll that was to die for, but had so much bacon on it that we immediately made our way to the gym after finishing it.

The rest of the morning was spent lifting, showering, getting groceries, and making our way into wine country. We had found a winery that had a tasting of 8 wines (which turned into 11), all for $15 each. Our sommelier gave us a history of the region and even allowed us to sample the last three wines they made for free. All in all, it was a great deal! Due to all of the wine we had consumed, we opted to watch a movie in the parking lot after it had closed before heading to our campsite for the night.

The campsite was right next to the beach, nestled into a small grove of trees behind the dunes. While the light disappeared behind the trees, we tested out "Australian Kraft Dinner", which came in a bag. It was somewhat successful, although we missed the key ingredients of milk/butter that the "recipe" called for; overall, not a bad way to end the day!

Saturday, February 21st

Waking up at the edge of the beach has the great benefit of being able to step out of the car and almost directly onto the beach for a morning walk. We spotted some birds and some of our first venomous jellyfish before hopping back in the car for the quick drive to the rainforest town of Port Macquarie.

We drove to the Rainforest Cafe, but not like the ones in North America with animatronics, but with an actual rainforest surrounding it. We enjoyed our milkshakes and scones, then, on our way out, a nature guide approached us and asked, “You guys wanna see a snake?” Katie’s fear receptors were already firing, but James quickly said yes, so Katie had no choice but to follow. We went out onto the boardwalk, where a second nature guide was pointing out an 8-foot carpet/diamond python in a tree right off the platform.

We asked the nature guide about what kind of snake it was, and he told us, then said, “ya, they’re pretty nonvenemous,” to which we immediately asked for clarification about what “pretty nonvenemous means????”. He chuckled, and we learned that this was his Aussie way to say, “nonvenenous”.

Katie survived her first snake encounter but hated the fact that snakes can just easily climb trees. Who let them do that??

Back in the car for a longer drive, we headed up the mountain roads once again to Dorrigo National Park.

Here, we actually did do a sunset hike. However, when hiking in a lush rainforest, there is not much of a sunset, just a gradual darkening of the surroundings. This might be our favourite hike so far! It was stunning! Weaving through the rainforest with fruit doves hooing overhead, eucalyptus trees and hardwoods mingling, waterfalls flowing, it was a stunning scene. We even got to go behind a waterfall!

The sunset at the top was a bit underwehlming but we did get to see a beautiful sunrise the next morning.