Royal National Park

We have wheels! Charlie got into the campus preschool because a family is on sabbatical and wanted to keep their slot while they were gone through October. The family also offered us the use of their car while their gone - a standard shift Subaru Forester, just like home only blue and with all the controls on the opposite side of the car. This gives us many more options for weekend travel (and grocery shopping!).


Today we headed to Royal National Park, the second oldest National Park in the world next to...Yellowstone! I'm not quite sure who keeps track of the official list of National Parks, but we'll go with it. From home, we planned to do a hike that promised to be challenging but reward you with arriving at a beautiful beach. Our hostess at the information center suggested that challenging meant it was really for mountain goats and the beach at the bottom was a popular clothing-optional location, so we headed to the Wattamolla (or WattaMOLLY, for us) walk instead. It was about a 2.4 or 5.2K walk roundtrip to a waterfall that may or may not be called Curracurrang or Curracurrong.

Much of the Park was destroyed by a fire about a decade ago, but the shrubs that cover the landscape have returned (I'm guessing that's what was here before) and we walked through lots of vegetation with wildflowers along the cliffs of the Pacific. Here's our picnic lunch spot in a little inlet.



Here are the waterfalls in the distance - as far as we made it, with tired little legs and very wet socks from a few puddle jumping mishaps. Mud tried to eat Charlie's shoe in one instance...


Oh yeah, wildlife in the wild! One of 4 or 5 lizards:

Just in time for the first preseason game of the year, the Pittsburgh Steeler Bird, or as they call them here, the New Holland Honey Eater.And just as the symphony of whining about exhaustion was reaching a frenzy...look who we have here. Actually, we don't know who we have here, but we stalked it like the tourists we are! Kangaroo or wallaby? You be the judge. Upon seeing this, Molly yelled, "It's in the WILD!"
Australians seem to LOVE their barbies, if I might generalize about an entire population! Lots of the parks have these gas barbies available for picnics to grill up their meat or veggie burgers free of charge. If you read the fine print just before the large button begging to be pushed by a small person, you'll be less concerned about safety because they warn us "NEVER Let Children Play on or Near This Appliance". That, or play on playgrounds with high heels.


A Royal Farewell, until next time!