My drive from Wollongong was smooth right up until I turned on the road that heads up into the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. It turns out I’m driving on Anzac Day, a pretty major holiday here in Australia, so the traffic was just ridiculous! I still made it to Faulconbridge, the hike I had planned to do along the way, just later than expected. Faulconbridge was about a nine mile round trip hike. It was pretty flat and uninteresting…
My next stop on this Australian adventure is Wollongong, which is really just the convenient town I decided to stay in. It has a convenient hostel and lots of nearby restaurants. On the way in from Canberra I made a stop to check out a couple of waterfalls, Fitzroy and Twin Falls. There’s a short trail between the two. Unfortunately, it had been pouring rain all day and the visibility due to fog was really low, but I put on…
I left the Snowy Mountains that didn’t have any snow yet and headed northeast through some really beautiful grassland until I reached the Australian Capital Territory. It’s a smallish territory created specifically to encompass Australia’s capital city, Canberra. I wanted to see the capital, of course, but I was most excited about all the museums. I started at the main one, the Australian National Museum. Right in the lobby was the Muttaburrasaurus, Australia’s own native dinosaur. They named it that…
Well, as I mentioned in the last post, I had a very long drive from Bendigo, about seven hours. I zipped across northern Victoria, crossed over into New South Wales, and drove the twisty turny roads up into Australia’s Snowy Mountains, specifically, the little ski resort town of Thredbo. I checked in, got dinner, and prepared for the next days activity. I came here for one thing and one thing only, to hike Australia’s highest peak, Mt Kosciuszko. The hike…
After Mungo National Park the next closest stop on my itinerary is clear on the other side of Victoria, a really really long drive. So I decided I needed to add a stop in between to break up that drive… and now I’m in Bendigo. I picked this place because I wanted to see the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion. Even though it’s a big modern construction, this place was pretty amazing. The main structure is modeled after the 15th…
I left Grampians and headed due north all the way to Victoria’s northern border. About half way there, I broke up my drive with a quick stop to see a pink lake, Lake Tyrell. Turns out, it’s a dry lake most of the time, but it did have a distinct pink hue. It’s part of an ancient basin that later became a salt lake when the ocean receded about a gazillion years ago. When it does get water, it quickly…
I now find myself out in western Victoria in Grampians National Park. Grampians got hit really hard by bush fires this past year and as a result a huge swath of the park is closed. Several of the trails I wanted to do are off limits due to the fire damage. Luckily, enough of the park is still open to make it worthwhile. Driving here from the coast I saw a lot of these signs. I have a good feeling…
Leaving from Apollo Bay, I made my way west along Australia’s unbelievable southern coast, specifically, a section known as Port Campbell National Park. It’s basically a long strip of the coast with lots of little hikes and viewpoints to enjoy nature’s handiwork. First up, was the Gibson Steps Beach. Down the cliff via some steps of doom and onto the beach. It was a pretty overwhelming location, in a good way, but it was just the beginning of my long…
I made it out of Melbourne and made my way southwest to my next official stop, Great Otway National Park. I took the long way here by making a huge loop around to the northwest so I could go visit Trentham Falls, but it turned out to just be a trickle, about a one on the gusher scale, and not really worth the effort. Oh well! From there it was due south for the rest of the day. My route…
Greetings from my latest adventure Down Under! That’s right, not only am I visiting the next country on my list, Australia (just in case you didn’t figure that out), but I’m also adding another continent to my tally. So let’s dive right in, since that’s pretty much what I had to do. After flying twentyish hours across the Pacific, my flight arrived into Melbourne at 8am. Which meant I had to try and stay awake all day so I could…