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.
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