as high as the heavens: Australian Pilgrimage Part 4

As I wrote in the previous post, we left Armidale for Sydney last Thursday morning (due to interruptions and delays it's longer ago now). Our plan was to stop for a night at a motel near Newcastle. We took our Armidale friend Mark's suggestion and went The Bucketts Way road. He said it's more interesting than the New England Highway.

It was a pretty drive. It only got very steep and winding in one place that I remember. John may remember more.

Not the steep winding part

This was half way down the steepest part. It was steeper than it looks here.

Some of the pretty scenery along the way.

Those little dots are cows

Here's an enlarged view.

In the afternoon we stopped in the town of Gloucester for a walk and to try to find the loo--we did eventually.

They have a beautiful park along Gloucester River.

I was surprised and delighted to see by this sign that there are platypuses in the river. I didn't see any but still it was exciting to know that they are there. I've only ever seen them in captivity.

These were the only duck-billed animals we saw. Not as exciting as sighting a platypus would have been but still cute.

We also wiled away the time while we drove by singing hymns and choruses and trying to listen to an audio book on-line. The internet was spotty so the book stopped every so often. Then we sang for a bit until the book came back. Our memory of the hymns was a bit spotty too. We sometimes had to look them up on line. But it was a delightful way to spend the time.

We stayed the night at The Sir Francis Drake Motel outside of Newcastle.

A large room with comfortable seating, table and fridge.
It also had wifi so I was able to download the audio book to make it easier to listen to. (it is "Love Among the Chickens" by P.G. Woodhouse. It's funny so far. We haven't finished listening to it yet.)

The next day we only had two hours left of our trip to Sydney. But we stopped to hike in Strickland State Forest along the way. It looks close to the motor way on the map. But the way to it once we were off the main road was so convoluted, narrow and winding that it was rather hair raising and we were beginning to wonder if it was worth the trouble.

I'm glad we didn't meet any on coming traffic.

We hiked the Strickland Falls Track. The hike in and out was more interesting than the actual falls.

John was not ready but hopefully the scenery makes up for it. When I showed him he quipped, "Every prospect pleases, only man is vile."

The waterfall. It was more like a trickle when we were there. The water doesn't show in this photo. The part on the right that looks like water is actually a dried palm frond.

We went back a different way that was higher and got more light. I was delighted to see so many flowers. It was good that John had allowed plenty of time for this part of our trip!

This is a very enlarged photo of a wattle flower. Wattles are the floral emblem of Australia. They were even embroidered onto Queen Elizabeth II's coronation gown in 1953. They are often brighter yellow. I love them in any shade!