2000/02 Australia trip - Royal national park |
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We had lunch overlooking the harbour in Ulladulla, and headed north towards Sydney.
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Ulladulla (1.10) |  |
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We’d intended swinging inland through Morton National Park but took a wrong turn in Nowra and went up the coast, so we had to backtrack a little way. We went up to the highlands via Macquarie Pass and its miles of very tight switchbacks. We`d come down this road late at night five years ago and wondered what we’d got ourselves into.
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Macquarie Pass (1.05) |
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We went to Fitzroy Falls, one of the few waterfalls that has a constant flow all year. It drops 250 feet off the edge of the plateau, so tall that you have to walk a fair distance away just to be able to see all of it at one time. We also walked to Twin Falls which has a similar drop, but, on this hot summer’s day, no water!
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Morton Park (5.38) |  |
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By now it was getting late and we wanted to be into Royal National Park before dark. The camper was getting low on petrol, but we still had a quarter tank so didn’t need to fill up until the next day. Wrong! The tank hit empty in 10 minutes, a very unfriendly gauge! Just to make things worse we were on a motorway and the surrounding area was a lot wilder than we’d expected for the area between Wollongong and Sydney. We pulled off the motorway at one of the park’s entrances, but there was no petrol there, so we ended up back on the motorway with all the empty warning lights on. We finally cruised into the first petrol station with big sighs of relief and put 551/2 litres into a 56 litre tank.
Royal was the first Australian national park and it’s really close to Sydney, just across the bay from Cronulla where we stayed five years ago, so it was nice to see that much of it is still wild. It was now dark and we missed the entrance to the Bonnie Vale campground, which was on the edge of Bundeena, a town inside the park. We broke our own record for the number of U-turns looking for it and trying to find out who was in charge and where you booked a site.
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Royal park (4.02) |  |
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The campground was a mess, surrounded by derelict cabins, some condemned, some collapsed. We found a spot away from all this mess, overlooking the bay, but the tide was out, and it was a little like camping on Shoreham harbour. We decided to ignore all this and the rather dilapidated facilities and plumbing, and the jets taking off from Sydney airport, and settled down to the serious business of finishing off our remaining food and drink supplies. We were also starting to pack for the trip and deciding what kind of story we’d have for US customs, and the drink helped a little.
Thursday February 17th
Despite all this consumption, I still woke up early to the screaming of cockatoos, and set off along the sand bar out into the bay with the idea of recording the sunrise. Once I got out there the water looked so inviting that I went for a swim and a float, and watched the sun rise between my toes.
The whole place looked much prettier in the sunshine with the tide in. The forest came right down to the shoreline, with cockatoos, lorikeets, currawongs and ravens. Out in the water we had herons, ducks, and ibis hunting between the mangroves. We spent the morning packing, reluctant to leave, as always. Sandie went around the campground donating our remaining supplies.