14/3/17
On the way to lunch today with Lyn’s brother Norm & Debbie at Shoalhaven Heads , we detoured to Berry . While checking out a few country lanes we found some interesting sights . Around Berry there’s a bit of dairying , and you can understand why when the grass is as green as it is at the moment !!
After chatting to a local resident in between rain showers , we drove across the highway and headed up to a place called Woodhill . It’s up in the escarpment , and runs into Budderoo National Park and Barren Ground Nature Reserve .
It was one of those light bulb moments , when you find somewhere you’ve driven past for years and never stopped at . This locality runs in to Kangaroo Valley and another locality - Wattamolla . It’s one road we’d never been up or down from either end . Heading up the road and toward Kangaroo Valley , it was like you’d found a little bit of paradise , clouds just covering the top of the escarpment , green grass almost shouting at us , and untouched temperate rain forest stretching into the valleys and cliffs around us - spectacular !!
Time running short we turned and headed out for lunch , we’ll be back here - maybe tomorrow .
We enjoyed lunch and catching up with Norm & Debbie , then headed for the park .
15/3/17
After last nights rain showers , we were guaranteed plenty of water around the place , it bucketed down several times through the night .
With our spirit of adventure reignited yesterday , we headed back to Woodhill again . On the way just near Berry is a Camp Quality recreation ground , and I noticed yesterday , there was a nice little stream , so we called in for a look . Well it was flowing very well , probably 500mm higher than yesterday !! It was a chance to play with the camera & tripod - here’s some of the results .
There’s an opportunity for a view back down over Berry from about half way up the climb up the escarpment , so we stopped - of course !!
Another attraction was Drawing Room Rocks - we’d seen the sign yesterday . There’s a walking track up to the rocks , that can be reached from Barren Ground Nature Reserve but is a much longer walk . There was a few showers around when we arrived so we waited for a few minutes while they passed . There’s views down the valley toward Wattamolla at the start of the walk .
Hiking boots on , we started up the hill just after a 20 something , 6ft piece of muscle , oozing fitness , headed up the track in front of us . We did see him again , on his way down while we were still heading upwards !!
There is a sign saying it’s a Class 4 walk , 4 klms return - allow 3 hours for the trip - we had been told it’s only a 25 - 30 min walk - Hmmmmm . We kept going , just because we could , and it wasn’t raining - bonus !! The track was not very wide and dropped off quite steeply on one side and had quite a bit of rock face on the other - don’t trip over !! The views down into the tree’s was pretty good - the rainforest in all it’s glory - Wet !!
Deciding to return back to the ute we turned and headed down , not knowing how far we had to go wasn’t really helpful . Then the 20 something 6ft piece of muscle came back down, we chatted to him for a bit . He told us the track up top was flooded and you couldn’t get to the rocks anyway , so it was a good decision to return . After he’d passed us and disappeared down the track , I noticed there was quite a few leaches on Lyn’s shoes , looking at mine there was also plenty there as well . Brushing them off we kept going and tried not to stop so they couldn’t get us - good plan but - black socks may be good for not showing dirt , but not so great for showing leaches !! Back at the ute , it was shoes & socks off and check out how many friends we had still attached - Lyn had 2 on one foot and one on the other - they’d all had a little feed . I faired a little better and didn’t have any , but we put the shoes on the drivers side mat while we checked socks etc - a couple of the little beggars decided they’d stay inside and latch onto my feet while we drove down to Kangaroo Valley. Funny though , we did have a discussion about leaches yesterday , saying there’d be thousands of them with all the wet weather - is that the memory starting to go - or has it gone already hahahaha !!
The drive down was great , through a nice valley , the creek down the bottom was flowing really well . There’s a lot of dairy cows here with several farms . One bonus was to see a waterfall coming over the escarpment - it too flowing well .
Lunch was at Kangaroo Valley beside the river , then we decided to head out to Bendeela . For those that don’t know where that is , it’s west of the township on the northern side of the river and is a popular free camp . At christmas time and summer holidays it is extremely busy , there are 3 sections to camp in - just depend’s how busy it is , as to whether they open up the other sections . It’s a really good place for kayaking , you can paddle from the bridge in town down river to here , a pretty easy paddle - real easy today !!! There were about 30-40 caravans out here today and several tents .
The river was running a metre or so above normal level today , but people were still out paddling .
The return to Gerroa was still to be decided , but we chose Berry Mountain , as we hadn’t been over it for a long time . The thing we are noticing more than anything else in all these places we know , is the growth in all the trees - definitely taller and thicker than they ever were , I guess that’s the difference from when we were here and didn’t pay any attention to the scenery - it was just the road you drove to get to the destination , and you didn’t pay any attention to it , now however , we are probably taking time to smell the roses , you tend to notice a lot more when you slow down and open your eyes to everything around you !!!
The road over the mountain isn’t anything to write home about , but we did find a nice little waterfall crashing down the rocks beside the road - time for the tripod & camera again !!
The road wound it’s way up through the rainforest again , making for a nice drive .
And with that done , we were back at Berry , then the park , and then the pool - time for a few laps !!!
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