Coffs Harbour in 27 Pictures

View of the ocean from the Big Banana

Big Banana, take one.

Big Banana, take two.

Banana tree hill

Bananas!

Bongil Bongil National Park

Beach at Bongil Bongil

Blonde ale ram.  We met a lady who LOVED this t-shirt.  Maybe she'll buy the beer!

Beach at Bongil Bongil.

Epiphytes on the rainforest walk at Bongil Bongil National Park
(It would be much later that I learned this is a elkhorn fern.)

"Cat's Mustache" plant at the botanic garden

Crane flower plant

Coffs Harbour... harbor.

Mystery plant at the botanic garden

Laughing kookaburra!  These guys are loud and crazy sounding.

Life-savers at the Sawtell beach, though as far as I can tell the uniform is the same throughout AU.
Sponsored by DHL.

Dragonfruit and bananas at the Sunday Market

Rainbow Lorikeet

Local fruit and veg

We bought some custard apples.  They look like the flesh of fish on the inside...
taste a little like mangoes.

"Musical Note Plant" at the botanic garden

Another mysterious flower at the botanic garden

Park Beach in Coffs Harbour, where we swam/boogie boarded.

White Cheesewood

First swim a success!

Coffs Harbour, Sawtell and Muttonbird Island

Friday, April 25, Anzac Day.

Today we traveled east to the ocean, first on Waterfall Way and second by the Pacific Hwy.  Google maps puts it as 190 kilometers at 2 hours and 37 minutes.  It probably took us a little longer than that... the Citroën Berlingo is unable to maintain high speeds up hills, and the entire drive is quite hilly.  There wasn't much traffic, though, so other cars were never stuck behind us for very long.

We saw two more waterfalls along Waterfall Way -- actually drove right by them on the road.  We really went up to the top of the hills before coming back down again, it was amazingly beautiful.  Driving the Citroën can be a little stressful though--no cruise control and since you can't maintain 80 or 90 km/hr in 5th gear on hills (100 km/hr, the speed limit, is a joke), you're constantly downshifting to try to maintain speed, plus the whole thing rattles like an old rollercoaster.  Waterfall Way isn't exactly an easy drive either, I suppose--pretty winding roads, narrow and no shoulder.  When we got to the Pacific Hwy, however, which is a real freeway, it felt really foreign.  Everything on the left of course: slow traffic, exits and on-ramps.  It was a little strange.  Also, 110 km/hr seems so fast--especially for the little blue Berlingo.

We noticed that the hills outside of Armidale are definitely a little browner than they were two weeks ago when we did our bushwalks in the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park, but as you go east things got greener and greener again.  We started seeing really tall palms, crazily bright flowering trees (orange trees and purple trees) and large ferns.  The closer we got to the coast the more tropical everything looked--but there were still sheep and cattle farms off the sides of the roads.

Our first stop was to be Sawtell, south of Coffs Harbour, for a keg delivery, but the restaurant didn't open until 11:30 and we wanted to leave Armidale early, so we decided to go to Bongil Bongil National Park first.  We took a walk in the rainforest and kept our eyes out for koalas in the eucalyptus--no luck of course.  We walked down to the ocean afterwards and saw some surfers or boogie-boarders in the distance.

We ate lunch in Sawtell at a little cafe called Wholly Cow, then went to the beach again.  There we saw a lot more people in the water--and probably twice as many lifeguards waiting on the beach.  They wear funny little yellow and red caps.  I'm not sure if there are always so many lifeguards or if they were just prepared for a big turnout, considering that today was a holiday.  There weren't that many people on the beach though--but it was still a bit early.

We drove to Coffs Harbour (maybe a 20 minute drive or so) and checked in at our hostel.  We're staying at a place called Aussitel, which seems to be a pretty elaborate hostel.  There is equipment available for all sorts of things: surfboards, paddleboards, canoes... we're planning on taking advantage of that tomorrow.  We took a brief walk outside but due to imminent rain, headed back and took the car downtown.  It didn't end up raining while we were out and about, but afterwards when we went to the coast it did begin to rain.  We scoped out the restaurants for our later dinner, and donning our raincoats, walked out the jetty to Muttonbird Island.

It was pretty windy, though it was a drizzling rain and we didn't get too wet.  Muttonbird is the common name for the Short-tailed Shearwater, a type of seabird, and they nest on this island.  They lay their eggs in burrows and the chick stays underground until right before they are ready to migrate north to the Philippines, right around this time of year.  We climbed up to the top and down the other side, and didn't linger due to the rain.  On the way back down, however, we saw a chick--coming out of the burrow just to take a look around in the rain.  It was pretty neat.

The highlight of today was probably when we were walking along the jetty.  On one side is a marina, on the other is the beach.  Walking to Muttonbird Island I saw a dolphin jump out of the water--we watched it surface again a few times before we were out of view.  It was an amazing sight.  We pointed it out to a couple kids walking by--it was fun that they got really excited about it.  Strangers with a shared moment, standing on the jetty in the rain and watching a dolphin swim out of view.

Various birds, no longer unidentified.

Sunday we took a walk around the arboretum in town and spotted these two Galahs (also called Rose-breasted Cockatoos or Galah Cockatoos) in an oak tree.  For some reason the pink cockatoos in the autumn colors just seems a little bizarre.

Eolophus roseicapilla

I also picked up a field guide from the library for Eastern Australian wildlife.  Still haven't exactly figured out the white bird mystery (though I'm starting to think they're the sulphur-crested cockatoos and just don't have the big crest this time of year), but some of the other birds we've seen around are starting to get names to them.  We're familiar with the Australian magpie but now can distinguish butcherbirds and currawongs too.  There's also these little guys that hang out with the magpies sometimes.  They're a bit smaller and don't look quite the same at all, but at a glance they have similar colorings.

Magpie-lark, Grallina cyanoleuca.  Apparently they call them Peewees here in NSW.

A regular magpie.  Reid was getting nervous as they started coming closer to our table.

Angry bird (?)  More like an indifferent bird.

Close-up of a pair of Eastern Rosellas, Platycercus eximius.  We see Crimson Rosellas everywhere but still haven't gotten a picture of them.  They're very shy.

Welcome Swallows, Hirundo neoxena

I've got a couple more bird photos but they'll just have to wait for another day.  It's just as well--I need to look them up anyway.

Speaking of the field guide, we figured out what that mystery animal we saw two weekends ago on our bushwalk might be.  Maybe a brush-tailed phascogale (?? never heard of it!), also called a common wambenger (?? also never heard of it??!), also known by the native name tuan (??!?).  It's a small carnivorous marsupial.  This guy, right here.  Next time I'll take my own photo.

Phascogale tapoatafa

Farmer's Market and Car Boot Sale

Armidale has a pretty good sized Farmer's Market on the first and third Sundays of the month.  Pretty busy too!  Unlike in the States, the produce was mostly cheaper than in the supermarket.  I'm glad that we'll be able to support the local farms every couple weeks, as long as they've got produce to sell.  There was a mishmash of specialty stalls (macarons, baked goods, smoked fish) as well as little garage-sale stalls.  Hence the car boot sale, I guess.

We picked up tomatoes, zucchini, parsley, green bell peppers (always called capsicums down here), kiwifruits, and dragonfruit.  (Unfortunately, the dragonfruit wasn't nearly as good as the dragonfruit from Miyakojima.)  Haven't tried the kiwi yet--it's a bit crazy to me to think that all this is grown in the area.  Kiwis came from Coffs Harbour--we're headed there next weekend, on the coast.

Bonus: there was even a biodynamic farm!  Unexpectedly, but why not?  Also, the honey guy looks like the mayor from Portlandia.

In addition to produce, we splurged and bought coffee and pastries and went to an open part of the park and sat around, enjoying the nice weather.  It was windy and the magpies came over to investigate our crumbs.

I finally got a picture of the white birds we see flying around, and hadn't seen them close up until now either.  I'd originally thought they might be Sulphur-crested cockatoos... but they sure don't have the big crest like the ones on the wikipedia page.  More mysteries until we get our field guide to birds.

They make a pretty terrible noise, but they're real pretty when they fly around in the flock--white against a blue sky.  All of the ones we saw in the trees were roosting in pairs.  They were pretty cute.

Good Friday, Great Friday.

Both Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays in Australia, so it's a four day weekend for most people around here and nearly everything is closed.  Unfortunately, not for Reid... too much work to do.  But he's going to take Anzac Day, which is next Friday, off.  After this the next holiday is in June, when New South Wales celebrates the Queen's birthday.  (Not consistent throughout the states--in some parts it's celebrated in October.)

We learned that just like picnics and barbeques go with July 4 and Labor Day celebrations, camping goes with Easter around these parts.  A lot of stores were advertising earlier in the week sales for Easter camping.  It's too hot throughout most of the summer so there's a lot of tourism and travel around the holidays.  We thought we'd be the ones who were inappropriately dressed for the weather--as anything will feel warmer than the Michigan winter we came from--but I saw many people enjoying themselves in short sleeves today, when I was in pants and long sleeves.  It was 20 in the sun but felt pretty cool in the shade.  The air cools off so quickly as soon as the sun starts to dip behind the trees.

It's strange to see so many flowers and bushes blooming next to the changing colors.  It feels like both spring and autumn at the same time.  If I didn't know I was in Australia or the southern hemisphere I would just think some of the trees were unusual.

I feel a little conflicted about the long holiday... in some ways it's nice that everyone can relax and the whole country can take a little breather.  But I'm also a little annoyed that we'll be sitting on the floor.. sleeping in sleeping bags.. not getting the laundry done.. until next Tuesday.  But we did move out of the caravan park into our apartment yesterday!

Why would you ever buy a chocolate bunny when you can buy a chocolate bilby?

Gara Gorge and Wollomombi Falls - Feat. Wallabies and Sleepy Echidna

This last weekend we took two hikes in the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park - Gara Gorge on Saturday and Wollomombi Gorge on Sunday.

The Gara Gorge trailhead is about a twenty minute drive outside Armidale.  The road drops you off next to a lake and a rocky stream where the trail begins.  We saw one other group of early hikers; apparently there are platypus in the lake.  We'll have to come back sometime and try to spot one.

We sighted our first wallaby: startling one as we drove into the park.  We saw another shortly after we began our hike.  It watched us for a while before bounding away.  It was a little bit magical to see one in the wild.

We saw our first invasive species as well--a giant beautiful red fox.  Along with the feral goats, they're a bit of a problem for the native wildlife.  (However, we did not see any goats.)

The trail and the walk was incredibly beautiful.  The eucalyptus trees don't provide substantial shade so even in the forest the ground is blanketed in grass.  The large boulders everywhere felt like ancient statues, covered in lichen.  Except for magpies and the breeze, it was completely silent. Even though the scenery wasn't that similar, it reminded me a lot of our trip down to the Smokey Mountains last year--for some reason the temperature, the humidity, and the lush green felt familiar to that area.  Much more peaceful, however--a good place for forest bathing.

We met a pair of professional nomads on our way out.  We stopped and chatted for a while: beginning with the unseasonably warm weather and impacts of global warming (according to them, ten years ago it would have frosted by now, mid-April).  Once they learned we'd just relocated here, of course they recommended all the places in the New England region we need to be sure to visit (only one of which I can remember now).  They were very personable and seemed like really interesting people.  They've been on the road since 1978.

Wollomombi Gorge was a good hike to complement the Gara Gorge trail: the hike itself was not quite as beautiful but the views of the gorge were breathtaking.  It was also a bit more strenuous--a lot more hiking up and down the gorge slopes.

You have to cross private grazing land before you get to the park.

Wollomombi River from the first overlook of the gorge

Wallabies: exceptionally cooler in real life.

We saw a few wallabies, actually--the best was when we saw two chasing each other on the opposite side of the gorge.  They made a couple loops before separating and disappearing under the trees.  We also saw a mystery creature: coming down the gorge side, we just barely caught a glimpse of a small, dark animal with a long, curled tail.  I would guess it was a brushtailed possum but for the fact that we saw it in the daytime.

We were coming up a hillside when the birds in the trees suddenly started calling the alarm.  I thought they were just warning everything to our presence when a wedge-tailed eagle flew right over us--low, just above the tops of the trees.  Other than that, we saw more of the same: Shy crimson rosellas, magpies (everywhere), and these cute little (tiny!) gray songbirds with a golden belly.

Crossing the river

Most surprising of all, we saw an echidna!  Just on the side of the trail, it was sleeping next to a log.  We couldn't believe it.  Took some photos and some video before heading off to the last lookout point at the end of the trail.  It was still there when we came back, though it had moved a couple feet back.  I never thought I'd see an echidna in the wild.  Even though they're found in every part of Australia, I don't know how common they are--maybe this was just the first sighting of many, or maybe we'll never see one again.

What an unusual creature.