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 the rain coat and went for it. I had to wait for the opportune times when the fog moved to get pictures. On the plus side, all the rain sent both of these waterfalls straight to the top of the gusher scale, tens for both of these.

On the walk back after Twin Falls the fog really moved in and both waterfalls were completely obscured. I think I was really lucky to the pics that I did. Nearby was the Manning Lookout with a great view of Kangaroo Valley below. I had to wait for the clouds and fog again to be right for pics, but they actually framed the valley in a cool way.

After that I made it to the hostel in Wollongong and checked in. This place got amazing reviews, but it’s definitely a party hostel. Lots of young, drunk kids being loud and obnoxious and playing music right outside my window until 4am. Sleeping was a bit of a challenge. And when I walked into my dorm room for the first time, one of my roommates had turned the room into a makeshift tattoo studio. I think he was tattooing every girl in the place. I’ve seen and experienced some really weird stuff at hostels before, but that was a new one.

Enough about the awful hostel. The next day it was pouring rain again. I first attempted to go to Belmore Falls, but it was a steep dirt and gravel road that was rapidly turning into a river and I seriously doubted that my tiny little MG would make it without getting stuck, so I skipped that one. I’m not having the best luck so far. But wait! Next up was Carrington Falls which saved the day. It was still raining pretty hard, but holy crap was this an amazing waterfall!

There were a few other smaller waterfalls around too, but they all drop into the Kangaroo River and flow through this beautiful little gorge, seen above left. And Carrington Falls itself is receiving the rarely awarded full gusher plus. “This one goes to eleven”

There’s also several lookouts that you can hike to from here, but the trails were pretty flooded and the river was overflowing. I got stopped out on both of the trails I attempted. The first one, seen below, took me to this. At least it was a pretty spot, but there’s no way I’m getting across that river today.

The second trail leads to the Blue Hole and beyond. I made it as far as the Blue Hole but then the trail was completely flooded from there. The Blue Hole is normally a pristine swimming spot with Gatorade blue water. Today it’s a dangerous vortex of soaking wet death. That water was swirling around in a giant circle like Satan’s toilet.

As I drove further down the mountainside the rain slowly let up and the sun peeked between the clouds here and there making these next two waterfalls a little easier to get to. At the Cascade Falls trailhead I finally got a picture of one of those bright red parrots I’ve been seeing all over the country. I’m taking it as a good omen.

The hike to Cascade Falls was short and easy, but it sure was a beautiful walk through that rainforest. And the nine gusher at the end was well worth it.

The hike out to Rainbow Falls was just as easy, but quite a bit longer. By this point I didn’t mind at all since the rain finally stopped. Along the way I had this nagging pin prick feeling down by my knee. I kept itching it through my pants, but it wouldn’t go away, so I pulled up my pant leg to look and… guess who just got his first ever tick bite? Nasty little bugger!

Rainbow Falls is probably amazing. The trail only takes you to this viewpoint at the top of it though. It looks like it’s probably a really tall waterfall. I walked around a lot trying to find a better vantage point, but every direction led to plunging into an abyss. My guess is that the rain washed out the usual trail to the bottom. I considered walking out on the rocks. It seems like most people do that judging from pictures I’ve seen online, but today with all that gushing water, uhhh, no. Oh well, I’m still confident in giving this a nine on the gusher scale.

All of the hikes I did during this Wollongong stop involved four different national parks. Three of them (Morton, Buderoo, and Macquerie Pass) were just southwest of Wollongong clumped together. The parks are so oddly shaped and the borders so chaotic that most of the time I didn’t even know which park I was actually in.

Mt last day in Wollongong I headed first to the Minnamurra Rainforest for a very steep hike. It’s usually a loop hike, but a few weeks ago they got so much rain that it flooded half of the loop and destroyed the suspension bridge across the river, seen above. So now it’s an out and back hike. There were lots of little waterfalls and cascades along the way.

The ultimate goal was the Lower and Upper Minnamurra Falls. At the Lower Falls you only get a view from the top. They had a sign with a 19th century picture of it from the bottom so I know someone’s been down there. They’ve had over a century to build some steps of doom or something. They need to get on that.

The Upper Falls was just spectacular though. You can’t see it in this picture, but when the sun peeked out from the clouds a big rainbow streaked across the lower half of it. Another nine gusher.

It was a pretty long drive from Minnamurra to the fourth national park, Royal National Park north of Wollongong, but it was a great way to spend the second half of the day. I came here to hike part of the coastal track that runs the whole length of the park. I decided to start at Wattamolla Beach and head south.

Though maybe not as thrilling as the southern coast of Australia from a couple of weeks ago, it had it’s fair share of crazy rocks and stunning vistas. Plus I was super happy it wasn’t raining anymore.

I could’ve gone on for ten miles or more, but my turn around point was Curracurrong Creek.

Curracurrong flows from I don’t know where, down here to this beautiful coastline and then plunges into the Pacific Ocean over the cliffs. Awesome! There are two waterfalls, but it kinda looks like four because there’s not a ton of water. I’ll give these a two and a three on the gusher scale, respectively.

From the other side I got a great view of the falls and eagle rock, seen in the upper right corner of the pic below. Now it’s time to head back.

The whole hike these little yellow birds were zipping all over the place. I don’t know what they are, but they were even more active on the hike back because it’s close to dusk now. This pic was a very lucky shot.

Time for some dinner. Despite the rain and minor difficulties, this ended up being a pretty good few days. Tomorrow, I get to say so long and never again to this god awful hostel and move on to the next stop, where hopefully I can get some real sleep. Stay tuned…