Grand Pacific Drive

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Our apartment is in the cluster near the ocean.

Mom and Dad at Mount Keira.

We picked up the 8 passenger vehicle last night (a mini van).  We are already for our adventurous weekend.  We decided to head up to Mount Keira first.  There is a great view of Wollongong. Dagan showed my parents where our apartment is located, the lighthouse, the stadium, etc.

They are looking at the cassowaries.

Mom feeding a kangaroo.

Dad petting a kangaroo.

Next we headed to Symbio Wildlife Park.  The kids wanted my parents to feed kangaroos.  Many of the animals were moving around.  We saw lace monitors, koala bears, kangaroos, emus, cassowaries, kookaburras, much more.  It was overcast which was nice because it is supposed to get into the 90's again today.

Feeding the kangaroos.

The koalas were active.

A kookaburra in the tree.

A red gum tree

 After the wildlife park, we got on the Grand Pacific Drive which is a tourist route you can take down the coast.  We stopped at the boatshed in the Royal National Park to get some lunch.  The cockatoos were flying around, and we saw a kookaburra in a tree.  The kids want to come back and try out the water tricycles another time.

The cliff in the background is where people were jumping.

 We continued through the park and stopped at Wattamolla in Royal National Park.  Adam and I had stopped here when we came in May.  It was absolutely packed.  There were people everywhere.  The crazy part were the people jumping off the cliffs.  It was probably 50 feet high.  Adam and the kids really wanted to give it a try, but we hadn't brought along our swimmers.  We watched the jumpers for a while before following the path down to the water.  The kids and I walked on the rocks along the water.  The sun was out at this point, so it was rather toasty.  We watched some more jumpers before heading on the tourist drive again.

These are some of the rocks near the water.

One of the hang gliders

The Sea Cliff Bridfe

After winding our way through the national park, we stopped at Bald Hill.  It is an overlook with a great view of the Sea Cliff Bridge and the coast.  It is also the place were the hang gliders take off.  There were a few hang gliders getting ready go.  It was fun to watch them.  It looked very easy.  Sydney would really like to do this. 

My mom and I on the other end of the Sea Cliff Bridge.

At this point, we were all glad it was dinner time.  We met a family from Kansas City at the Scarborough Hotel.  Mike is from a town not too far from where my dad grew up, so they had fun discussing western Kansas.  This restaurant has a great view.  We sat right at the edge of the cliff with the ocean for as far as you can see.

We didn't make it home until close to 8:00 pm.  We had put in a long day.  We relaxed a little before calling it a day.  Tomorrow would be another packed day.