"Bellingen is all about restaurants, there's not much else here, and they're very expensive". Not really what we wanted to hear from our tourist information person. "But outside there are lovely walks", she said, as though just realising she was being recorded by the government. "There is a long pier at Urunga where you can walk out to sea and see every kind of ocean folk". If the cameras were rolling I would prefer to [...]
A dinner with old friends whom we had not seen for a while was very joyful, as we swapped stories and joked and laughed like naughty teenagers. They also shared bits of knowledge about Port Macquarie, one that caught their eye was a kilometre of painted rocks around the rocky coastline. As I was on my morning 'beach and rock platform' walk, I read many of the rocks. Generally they were about happy families, death [...]
What? Is an old bloke like you going to climb Mount Alum? And, I said, my old wife is joining me too. Nah, it wasn't really like that but there was an intimation that we would both be found dead on the track the following day. The two young teenagers at our lodgings looked around frantically for paper and pen (as though I might drop dead before I even started if they took too long). [...]
We took Corrie's toothache as an opportunity to also bring the red rally car into the pits. The pits however are in Mortdale, so it's like another rally in itself. A clean bill of health on the inside but extremely dirty on the outside - a sign maybe we could take on board to enhance our performance as well. It had to wait in line for a while so a walk round this industrial area [...]
I walked a lot today because we weren't driving, it was such a beautiful day, and I had lots of energy, so I was able to double my daily target. It was a great start for my next door neighbour friend was available so we set off on an early 7km walk around Balmain. He was great company and we had lots to talk about.Later I walked in another direction to keep the beach theme [...]
I missed the sunrise because the clouds wanted exclusive viewing rights, but the rain was finished so no need to get my poncho out for its first run. another long reef walk round a cliff to a more private beach. After breakfast we drove to my new beach and continued the beach walk and another reef. A couple of swimmers, half a dozen beach sitters, a jogger and a few dogs including Koda, a young [...]
A morning walk took me down to a small creek where Platypus are sometimes seen but not this time, and because private properties took the creek frontage, I walked the streets. A few oldies were performing unexplained exercises as the varied performances gave only a distant clue of its origin.Our friendly host told us that this town was struggling until a recent gold discovery. Now this place of beautiful buildings facing each other across the [...]
Outside our lodgings is a substantial levy that goes for kilometres around Wagga. There is a hefty steel fence made from large steel girders that are dug deep into the ground, the wall being one metre high with local water inhabitants drawn on the third of a metre wide wall. It was a smooth introduction into this busy town and a great escape to walk or cycle next to a very low Murrumbidgee. We chose [...]
Our first hotel (the rest have been motels which I didn't think existed any more). It was good to stay in one of these majestic icons of the outback and these flat planes seem to be their roots. The motels have no majesty, in fact they're mostly not pretty at all, but are practical especially with lots of luggage. We are breaking out, taking unnecessary items, a response to our minimalist ways on a camino.Back [...]
It's official, the world or at least Australia, is flat. In the outback it was flat but it's also flat everywhere else especially in Hay, where I heard a local on the radio saying it was even flatter than the Nullabor! A short stopover in Mildura gave us a great venue (The Murray) to walk around an island it had circumnavigated. As usual we end up finding the best walks are where the people are [...]
