14-17th December: Warrumbungles NP

This weekend my parents and I went on a road trip to the Warrumbungles, a national park about 7 hours NW of Sydney. We went car camping and stocked up in Mudgee on the way up. The next stop was Gulgong, a small town which had its hayday in the 1870s in a short gold-rush period. A high number of pubs and hotels and some other historic buildings is all that's left nowadays.


We went to the local museum which was full of displays with daily-life items, which kept us occupied for quite a while.




We stopped for the night in a caravan park in Dubbo which had basic but cheap cabins.


Dubbo's highlight, the Western Plains Zoo.



We got to the campsite at the end of the afternoon, apart from us there were only a few other parties.


The wildlife around came closer to us than the humans.





On sunday we went for the 14.5 km Grand High Tops walk, which lived up to the expectations.


Just after coming back to the campsite a huge cloud built up. It attracted a few spectators on our picnic bench....


....But not for very long.


We watched the spectacle from inside the car.



After about an hour we had the brilliant idea to leave the campsite and look for somewhere dry to stay for the night. We didn't get very far as the road out of the park was flooded. We drove back to the campsite but couldn't reach our tents because of the water....



....So had a cosy meal under the veranda at the visitor's centre. We managed to walk to the tents later on, but had to leave the car behind.


All peaceful again the next morning.


Lots of mud and branches, left behind by the water.

17th November: Snorkeling!!!

This Saturday the eight of us went for a swim at Gordons Bay. The water is not really cold anymore so the wet-suit is pure luxury now and those without one could stay in for over half an hour. As usual, all top quality under water pictures taken by Allan (the Dane).


Catfish hiding in the vegetation

The Blue Groper was still there of course

Bill above and behind the Blue Groper


A huge school of fish. From a distance they looked like a giant creature, it protects them from large predators


Blind shark


The beautiful FiddlerRay, well spotted by Allan who saw this one near the reef a little bit out of Gordons Bay

26-29th October: Coolah Tops Car Camping

The four of us set off early on Friday morning for our car camping trip. The two Hyundai's held up pretty well, the only interruptions on the road were several sudden stops to spot some Pond Ducks.....


We left the main road at Coolah, 35 km from the park, and continued over an unsealed road.


More reason to stop: a huge wedge-tailed eagle, Australia's largest bird with a wingspan of over 2.5 metres (according to Wikipedia, it also says "it can be identified at a glance - even by the non-expert"). This one got the non-experts out of the car as well.

We were spending 3 nights in Bracken's Hut, a corrugated iron shed basically, with no water or electricity. It kept us dry though and there was a table and a fireplace inside. Although there were two bedrooms in the hut, Iain and Jarrod preferred to sleep in their tents, something to do with spiders.

As we arrived at dusk on Friday we had to wait till Saturday morning to have a proper look around. The hut was on a grassy plain with lots of roos around.

And there was also a toilet, full of flies and spiders, and it was smelly too.



There were a few walks in the park, a short drive from the hut. According to one of the signs we should be aware of red-bellied black snakes, but we didn't see any during the whole trip. We did see a shell of an Unidentified Insect however.

A shy echidna, it was rolled up at first, later it found shelter in a hollow tree.


End of the afternoon, time for a drink and time to think about a fire to keep us warm later on. At an altitude of 1200 m, night temperatures dropped below 10 degrees.

Allan found a saw in the back of my car which was very handy.


We saw two large spiders between the dining table and the hut, first a fairly small huntsman and a bit further on a funnelweb spider, which became a bit aggressive when approached with a camera.


Early morning, a wombat returning to its hole after a night of grazing! These nocturnal animals are very shy and you don't see them very often. This one came home quite late, maybe he didn't dare to return sooner because of the high noise levels earlier in the morning.

A very approachable wombat, maybe because it was so tired.

More wildlife later on, when we went for a more challenging walk to a lava cave. On a lookout point we spotted several species of skinks, Jarrod managed to pick one of them up.


The path to the cave was a bit of a scramble at times.

According to the rumours a huge colony of bats was supposed to be found in the lava cave, we didn't see any unfortunately.




On the last night a huge thunder storm hit the area, luckily we could make a fire inside and watch some of the action from the verandah.