Wildlife encounters, stunning scenery and lots of active moments from swimming in open air pools, paddle boarding down the Minnamurra river, hiking along the coast path to watching OzTag games and surf lifesaving nippers. It’s been a packed month in Australia.
Twenty eight years ago when I was last in Australia, I was backpacking on a working holiday visa. This time I got to stay with my amazing friends, the Earl family - Katie, Mick, Rosie, George & Hollie. Huge thanks to them for being the best hosts. We managed to pack so much into a month.
The first mission upon arrival was to get through the jetlag. Hollie had the best advice to stay awake and power through until night-time. Having only managed a couple of hours sleep on the flight over I wasn't sure how realistic this was but we explored the beaches of Kiama during the afternoon and then whenever I started to look a little sleepy later in the day Hollie took me off for a walk around the nearby suburbs or made me jump in the swimming pool to wake up. With this strategy I managed to stay awake until 8pm and then slept through until 5am the next morning. A day of paddle boarding on the Minamurra river and surfing at local break 'the farm' the next day kept me awake an hour later and once I'd slept through the night again I was happily adjusted to Aussie time.
Southern Highlands
We spent a day exploring the southern highlands, if you've ever been to the Blue mountains the Southern highlands really reminded me of them with amazing views and the sound of cicadas all around. We visited Jamberoo lookout for the view down to the coast, explored Carrington Falls, had a drink in Kangaroo Valley, which sadly didn't live up to it's name as we didn't see any kangaroos but we did see a wombat as we drove along and then made an all important stop in Berry to sample the best donuts ever!
Bermagui Camping
Having successfully negotiated the jetlag we journeyed south for a week's camping to a campsite on the shore of Wallaga lake just outside Bermagui. As soon as we had pitched camp we headed onto the lake for a sunset paddleboard. The next day we checked out the surf at Camel rock and had the amazing experience of dolphins playing in the waves just beside us. We settled into camp life with roaring campfires every night and exploring by day. Whales swam by just off the headland as they migrated south, one came so close you could hear it calling to it's calf. The scenery was simply stunning with the walk to horse head rock a highlight which we did with the kids one morning. So much so that Katie and I did it again in the evening and were rewarded with finding lots of kangaroos which had come out for their evening nibble. We tentatively passed two that were close to the path, then made our way a little further along where we came across a whole group and thought maybe we should head back. However we turned round to find a huge kangaroo now standing right in the middle of the path, so we took our chances with the pack! Happy to say we made it safely through to tell the tale.
The campsite was just a short stroll through the bush to the beach so I made the effort to get up early for a couple of beautiful sunrises and treated myself to some yoga by the sea on the deserted beach. We visited nearby Narooma, where we were able to see lots of seals resting on the breakwater just below us. We visited the blue pool and swam in the beautiful clear water of the Bruce Steer ocean pool.
Coastal fun
No trip to Australia is complete if you don't embrace the active lifestyle, I love the way of life out there. Everything is set up to make it easy to be active with an abundance of free toilets, free car parking, outdoor gyms and free ocean swimming pools. If only it was like that on the Yorkshire coast. The local surf break is the farm and it was so much fun getting in the water with the kids and seeing how much they've progressed since living in Australia full time. As well as surfing we had a couple of trips paddle boarding on the Minamurra river, which is beautiful and such a lovely peaceful way to spend a few hours! I swam in the ocean pool at Shellharbour a few times, it was pretty cold when I first got there and had to get out after half an hour but as the month progressed I acclimatised and the water temperature steadily rose so I was managing 40-45 minutes by the end. It took some getting used to swimmming in a 50m pool, it must be over 25 years since I last swam in a pool that length and it is so much harder! I do like my push and glide at the end of every turn of a 25m pool but swimming with the sea crashing into the pool and blue skies above definitely made up for it!
The kids started back at Sunday morning nippers sessions with Kiama surf lifesaving club whilst I was there. I am so envious of the lifestyle they are growing up with. I would have loved to learn my lifesaving skills on Kiama surf beach rather than in Billingham Forum pool!
As well as action on and in the water we also managed to fit in plenty of walks including catching the train down to Gerringong and then hiking the coastal way back up to Kiama. It was a beautiful day and the walk reminded me of the Cleveland Way just with bluer seas and skies and much more interesting wildlife on the way! We saw dolphins, a whale, a kestrel and my least favourite wildlife encounter a red belly black snake, luckily it quickly slithered off into the undergrowth not to be seen again.
Wildlife galore
October is perfect whale watching season as the humpback whales make their journey south along the Australian coast from September through to November, if you stand on the shore you are pretty much guaranteed a sighting. One day on the beach in Bermagui it was akmost like watching fireworks as one after another kept leaping high into the air above the ocean. I really regretted not having my big camera and telephoto lens with me as the photo opportunities were endless! As well as whales we saw lots of dolphins and blue bottle jelly fish were frequently washed up on the shoreline. While we were camping there was a possum in the tree above our tent, we spotted echidnas crossing the road, had a couple of close encounters with kangaroos and saw the rear of a wombat in a field as we passed by. Not all encounters were caught on camera but below are just some of those that were...
Revisitng Sydney & Bondi beach
28 years ago I started my Australia adventures in Sydney so it was really nice to go back and revisit both the city centre and Bondi beach (as a former ligeuard I couldn't really miss it!) Last time I was in Sydney it was the lead up to the Sydney 2000 Olympics so it was really special to see George compete at the Sydney Olympic park on the athletics track that was used as the warm up track for the Olympics. After George had competed we took the ferry along the Paramatta river into Sydney, spent some time at the Opera house before having lunch close to Circular Quay. We then wandered through the Rocks onto Barangaroo and Darling Harbour.
A few days later we headed back up the coast this time to see Bondi beach, home of Bondi Rescue and the Norris Nuts and if you've not heard of the Norris Nuts count yourself lucky (Influencer family of Aussie olympic swimmer Justin Norris, big on youtube to save you looking it up). Our top goals for the day were for Rosie to see the Norris Nuts house and ideally get to meet Biggie (one of the Norris Nuts) and to see the Bondi Lifeguards in action. We managed to tick off seeing the Norris Nuts house but no sign of Biggie! We thought we might get to see a rescue when a couple of tourists entered the water at Backpackers rip in their underwear but they pretty much fell over straight away and came right back out so no dramatic rescues to see!
On the way back from Bondi we drove back via the sea cliff bridge and made a pit stop in Scarborough, the Scabrorough hotel was built in 1883 so nearly as old as our very own Grand Hotel, not quite so grand though!
Exploring Jervis Bay took up the final day of the trip, we headed into Booderee national park to visit Murray's beach, where we walked up to Governor Head. We then visited Cave beach where we saw some very tame kangaroos, before heading back out of the park and onto Hyams beach. This beach has some of the whitest sand I've seen and beautiful clear waters, it's just a shame it was cloudy that day as the phots don't do it justice. After lunch in Huskisson where we saw rainbow lorikeets we headed back home for a final meal out in Kiama.
Having a full month to explore was very special, I got to spend amazing quality time with my friends and fully switch off. Now I'm back, feeling refreshed and excited to get back to teaching yoga!
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