Featherdale/Three Sisters/Giant Stairway

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Dale, Gabbie & a koala

Dale with the black cockatoo

echidna

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Dagan feeding a wombat.

Sydney touching a tawny frogmouth.

We were off to a wildlife park and the Blue Mountains for a few days.  We stopped at Featherdale Wildlife Park first.  The kids wanted Dale and Gabbie to touch/feed a kangaroo.  The animals were really active today.  Most of them were really moving around.  The birds liked Dale.  He would talk to them, and they would follow him down the cage.  It was funny.  We did see a wallaby with a joey.  The baby was very cute.  Dagan has been wanting to touch a wombat, so he tossed his kangaroo food into the wombat cage and reached in quick to get a feel of them.  He said they were soft.  He was tricky because he knows that they can bite.  We also saw two dingo pups.  They acted just like our puppies.  They were super cute.

dingo pup

Sydney loves the kangaroos.

Dale & Gabbie walking
down part of the giant
stairway to the
Three Sisters.

I am a level up from Sydney
on the stairway.

After the animal park, we headed to Katoomba.  We went to the hobbit place for lunch.  Last time we were there, they were closed.  They had changed their name and done some renovations.  We were glad it was open again.  After lunch, we went to see the three sisters.  We noticed you could walk next to them, so we followed the path down.  Part of the pathway is called the giant stairway.  There are supposed to be 900ish steps down to the bottom.  The kids and I wanted to go on it to see what it was like.  All six of us went down the stairs to the bridge to the three sisters.  The steps were really steep.  Dagan continued on down the staircase.  Sydney and I decided to follow him.  We went down a fair distance.  We met Dagan coming back up.  He had made it down to another lookout.  When I asked him if I should continue, he said no.  Sydney went down to the lookout.  Dagan and I asked her to count the steps from the lookout up.  Then the kids counted the steps the rest of the way to the top.  We ended up going up around 475 steps, so we had made it halfway down.  It was rather difficult on the way up.  I was "puffy".  Our new saying for being out of breath.  I decided the only way I would ever really go all the way down the stairs would be if I could walk to Scenic World and catch the train for a ride up the hill.

Sydney, Adam, & Dagan

Sydney & Dagan waiting for me.

After our hike, we traveled to Blackheath where we were going to spend the night.  Gabbie thought our motel should be in the Alps.   The rooms were freezing.  We cranked up the heat and hoped they would warm up before we went to sleep.  We drove quickly through the town to see what was there.  It was rather small.  Our drive didn't take long.  There were a handful of restaurants open, so we found a casual place for dinner.  Thankfully, our rooms were warm by the time we got back and went to bed.

Illawarra Boat Charters

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Our boat for the trip

We are off!

Dagan caught two at one time.

Sydney caught a red snapper.

The pelicans are waiting.

Gabbie

Dale

Adam caught the largest fish.

We were up early this morning and headed over to the harbour.  We went fishing with Illawarra Boat Charters.  We went out of Wollongong, and we went reef fishing.  All of us thought the boat we were going on looked like it could have been in the movie Jaws.





                                            Adam started singing a song from one part of the movie.  It made us laugh.  It was cloudy when we boarded the boat, and started raining on our way out to the reef.  It was also pretty wavy.  The captain told us the water was really calm for this area, but the waves made the boat bob all around.  Thankfully, it stopped raining after a while.    We caught fish right away.  The kids had fun reeling the fish in.  The adults found it difficult to tell if a fish was on or not.  It was a different kind of fishing than are used to.  We caught a wide variety of fish: red snapper, flathead, morwang, sergeant baker fish, leatherjack,  mackerel, pigs, king, and a few others that I can't remember the names.  Seagulls, albatross, and pelicans swam around the boat looking for handouts.  We also, had a seal follow us around for a while.  When you hooked a fish, you had to reel quickly, so the seal or pelicans wouldn't eat it.  We also had a whale come up right next to the boat.  When it blew out water, it startled all of us.  I also saw a whale breach.  It breached a second time, so most of us saw the second jump.  We had a good day on the water and ended up with a wide variety of fish.  We will have some good dinners over the next few days.

The seal

The birds waiting for a hand out.

As they filleted our fish, the pelicans were waiting.

Fitzroy Falls

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Gabbie, Dale, Adam, & Kristin

Fitzroy Falls

This is the kids favorite part.

Today, the kids thought Dale and Gabbie should go up Macquarie Pass.  We curved our way up the mountain and stopped at the top at Robertson's, so Dagan could get a meat pie.  These are his favorite.  We stopped at the Cheese Factory before heading on to Fitzroy Falls.  The falls were great today.  With all the rain we've had there was a ton of water flowing.  Ftizroy was larger than we had ever seen, and there were quite a few more waterfalls that we could see along the path.  It was neat to see.  We walked on the path to the lookout that shows Fitzroy Falls from the opposite side.  After our bushwalk, we went into Kangaroo Valley.  We had some lunch, and then drove up and down the mountain again on our way back to Wollongong.

Adam & Dale with 2 watefalls behind them.

The six of us with the falls behind us.

Gerrigong Golf Course

Monday, July 8, 2013

Dagan is shooting up hill.

Look at Sydney's form.

This tee box had a great view.

Which one drives better?

Is Adam looking for his ball or going to the beach?

Dale & Adam

Gabbie & Sydney

Views of the mountains & beach

Which one of us is putting?

We went golfing today.  Adam and I decided we wanted to try a different course.  We had driven by the Gerrigong Golf Course a few times and thought it looked very picturesque.  We were right.  It is located right on the ocean.  Some of the holes are right next to the beach.  The views are pretty amazing.  In the opposite direction were the mountains, so no matter where you looked you had a great view.  The course was rather difficult due to the hole placements and hills.  Gabbie and I had the slow cart.  It barely made it up the steep hills and got stuck in the mud one time because the ground was really moist from all the rain we had gotten.  Adam and Dale were in another cart.  Their cart's brakes didn't work very well, so they had that to deal with.  Sydney and Dagan rode in the same golf cart.  Both really enjoyed driving the cart around the course.  They ended up with the only cart that worked correctly and drove fast.  

Sydney with Dale & Gabbie

Sunday, July 7, 2013

platypus

cuttlefish

Dale and Gabbie looking
at the  skates.

Wrasse fish

Dugong

I wonder if Dagan got a good picture.

Dugong from above

We went to Sydney today.  We ended up driving because they closed down our train line again.  Frustrating!  We parked under the Opera House, walked to Circular Quay, and hopped on a ferry to Darling Harbour.  We wanted to go to the Sydney Aquarium.  The platypus were swimming today. We always enjoy seeing them because they are just so strange.  We wandered our way through the aquarium.  We saw a cuttlefish, sharks, sawfish, skates, dugong, wrasse, etc.  It is a really good aquarium.  When we were leaving, the line to get into the aquarium was out the door.  Thankfully, we decided to go early.

Gabbie & Dale

Sydney Harbour Bridge and Luna Park

Sydney Opera House at dusk

 We stopped for a snack before hopping the ferry back to Circular Quay and The Rocks, our favorite part of Sydney.  We went to the market.  Sydney and I did some more shopping before getting dinner at Lowenbrau Keller.  We enjoyed meandering our way through the alleyways and looking at the lights of the city on our walk back to the car.  

Kiama

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Adam, Sydney & Dale walking on the rocks.

Dagan looking for rocks for his collection.

Dagan found this rock that moved.
Adam had to try it out.

Dale & Gabbie

Dale and Gabbie arrived yesterday.  We let them have a pretty quiet day.  Today, we decided to head to Kiama.  We went to the blowhole first.  Unfortunately, the water was really calm, so the water didn't shoot out of the blowhole.  We went out on the rocks instead.  We always love the view from the rocks.  The water was a beautiful blue.  We wandered around town for a little while before going to Bombo Headlands.  Dagan gave us a good scare here.  Sydney and he climbed around the water to get to the top of the pile.  On the way back, the water had splashed up where they were going to walk.  As Dagan was trying to get around the wet rocks, he slipped and slid 10 feet towards the water.  Thankfully, he caught himself.  Otherwise, he would have fallen into the deep water where the waves were crashing into the rocks.  It was scary.  In the end, he didn't even get a bruise.   He just had to add a little excitement to our day.

Sydney & Dagan at the top of the rocks.
Below by the water is wear he slipped.

They were watching the fishermen below us.