Caves, cabins, Captain Cook, culture and Koalas
The rain didn’t let up all Tuesday night. Call us wimps if you like but there comes a point when camping ceases to be fun anymore. So on Wednesday morning we bailed out (almost literally) and converted the two nights camping we had paid for in advance to one night in a cabin. Bliss! It had its own bathroom and kitchen and a heater (and an electric blanket – which we didn’t use I might add). But it was great to have somewhere warm and dry to sit and not to have to paddle on the way to bed. After transferring our gear to the cabin we set off for the caves at Jenolan about 75km away. We had booked tickets in advance and as part of the deal we got an audio guide to do a self-guided tour of two caves, the Devil’s Coach House and Nettle Cave. The Devil’s Coach House is a huge open cave and the audio guide filled us in on the formation of the caves and on their discovery. They are, in parts, about 130 million years old (I think I have remembered this correctly) and were extensively explored by candlelight originally. In Nettle Cave we saw lots of beautiful crystal formations including some stromalites which looked like lobsters. Those of you who have been paying attention will remember that stromatolites are formed by cyanobacteria (see previous entry on Shark Bay). All the “lobsters” are orientated in the same direction due to the direction of the light in the cave. In the afternoon we had a guided tour of one of the show caves, which we had booked – the River Cave. This took about 2 hours and wound its way through lots of caverns, up and down steps and ladders. There were lots of stunning crystal formation of all different types and colours and, as the name of the cave suggests, an underground river and pools. There are about 10 different caves which are open to the public so the whole complex is very extensive. After that we had a walk down the river (outside the caves) where there were supposed to be platypusses but we didn’t see any. Back at the cabin it was still raining and the cloud was down again so we were really pleased to be able to snuggle into our nice warm bed.
We abandoned the Blue Mountains (still raining) the next morning and headed for Botany Bay. When we got there the sun was out and it was warm so we stripped off all our layers of fleece and put the tent up to dry it out. Botany Bay (as you probably know) is where Captain Cook first landed in Australia. You can see the actual spot. It is all very industrial in the area now but there is a national park as well with monuments to Cook, Banks and Solander. There is also quite a god exhibition called “8 days that changed the world” because that was the length of time they spent in Botany Bay. When the tent was dry we had a short walk along the coast and then had great trouble finding somewhere to stay. Having got the tent dry we didn’t want to get it wet again so we decided to go to a hostel – fully booked. After driving round in ever decreasing circles in the rush hour we finally ended up in a motel for the night.
In the evening there was a programme on the TV about the origins of the Australian accent. It seems that it was the children of assorted immigrants who developed the distinctive Aussie sound. Interestingly they referred to a book called “Let’s Talk Strine” which I remembered from my youth and mentioned that wonderful phrase “Emma Chisset”. The next day it was raining (surprise!) so we decided to go to Featherdale Wildlife Park. We still hadn’t seen any koalas or wombats and this was our last chance. Anyway, there were more koalas than you could shake a stick at, all propped up asleep in trees – magic! And several wombats and a yard full of kangaroos that you could wander through. Some had Joeys in their pouches. It was quite entertaining watching the pouches wriggling about prior to a little head popping out. We also saw an echidna (not being terrorised by a dog this time!). And lots of birds and reptiles. Then Katie drove us into Sydney and we took the car back and found our hostel which was about half an hours walk from the opera house. And we managed to get tickets for a concert! There was a series of concerts conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy – all Rachmaninov. We could only get two separate tickets in the cheap seats right up in the gods. We strolled around the harbour and round an area called the Rocks which is all market stalls and pubs and cafes before heading back to the hostel for dinner.
Saturday was sunny! So we headed off in the direction of Darling Harbour and the National Maritime Museum. The best thing there (for us anyway) had nothing to do with the sea at all. When we had been to the Dolomites a few years ago we had passed through Bolzano where they have a museum containing Otzi the Iceman but it was closed. So we thought we would never get to see the exhibition but there it was in Sydney. Otzi was killed on his way over the Alps about 5300 years ago and was discovered in the early 90s by some moutaineers, well- preserved with all his clothing etc. The exhibition covered all the research they had done on the body trying to find out where he had come from and what his life was like and how he had died.
Then we had a tour of an actual sized replica of the Endeavour, built in the late 80s/early 90s. It was actually quite a small ship. Inside it loooked amazingly clean with hammocks hanging up for the crew and tables laid for dinner – rather cleaner than a lot of the hostels we have stayed in! The officers’ quarters were very cramped with low ceilings and tiny little doors to each of the cabins. They take the replica ship out to sea sometimes.
For a bit more culture we went to the Art Gallery of New South Wales where there was an exhibition of the works of Sydney Nolan. If you are as ignorant as me you probably won’t have heard of him but he is one of Australia’s greatest artists. He was born in 1917 in Victoria. Some of works are of the Goulburn River near where he was born and are really beautiful, including one which is made up of panels which go round nearly 360 degrees. He painted mainly in enamels, PVA and spray paint so the colours are very strong and vibrant. I think he is most famous for his paintings of Ned Kelly but he has also done lots of landscapes of Australia and other parts of the world including China. I thought the paintings were wonderful. To round off a very full day we attended the concert which I mentioned earlier. We heard “The Rock”, the fourth piano concerto and the second symphony. It was brilliant and it didn’t matter that we were so far from the orchestra as the acoustics were very good.
On Sunday we were feeling quite lazy so we walked to the harbour and bought day trip tickets for the ferries. You can have as many rides round the different parts of the harbour as you like. First we went to Manly, which has a famous surfing beach. There were all sorts of competitions between the local surf life saving clubs going on which was quite entertaining. After lunch on the beach we headed back to the quay and got a ferry up river towards Parramatta. This took about an hour and we admired all the expensive houses around the harbour and the yachts and motor boats. I think you have to be quite well off to live in Sydney but we agreed that it was the nicest of the Australian cities we have visited. On our return to Sydney we walked across the Harbour Bridge from which you get good views of the city – somewhat obscured by the fencing to prevent people jumping off.
For our last day in Sydney we decided we had to go to Bondi Beach. Can you visit Sydney and not go to Bondi Beach? It was a bit disappointing though as it was a nice beach but no better than others we had been on (and certainly not a patch on Cable). The waves weren’t even very big. We had a walk along the coastal path where there were about 100 scupltures on display. The path was clogged with coach trips of pensioners and school parties looking at the sculptures. We watched the surfers for a bit before getting the bus back to Sydney. We strolled around the Botanic Gardens for a while before heading back to the hostel to collect our gear to catch the overnight bus to Melbourne. The journey took about 12 hours and we arrived this morning (Tuesday) at about 6.30am. We will be here until tomorrow when we fly out to Christchurch, NZ. So we have to say goodbye to Oz which is a shame as it has been a great place. But I am sure we will be back to see all the things we couldn’t see this time (most of the east coast, Kimberley, the Bungle Bungles, Tasmania………………)
Continuing our theme from China we thought we would list our five best things in Oz.
1. The weather (Blue Mountains excepted!)
2. The Outback
3. The beaches
4. The wild life
5. The wine
There aren’t five bad things that we could think of.
1. There are so many things that want to kill you (jellyfish, crocodiles, spiders, snakes)
2. The beer – nothing but lager
3. Unsealed roads which you can’t go on in a hire car
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