Sunday, 9/16

Morning song

     I woke up around 5:30, at early dawn and an hour before sunrise. As in our first campground on the other side of the Blue Mountains we were serenaded by birds, except this time it was a melodious choir of tweets, chirps, warbles, whistles and song. The absence of the noisy Cockatoo helped. In particular was the song of the Australian Magpie, a varied tune that sounded as if it came from an exotic instrument that was a cross between a flute and an oboe played through a long vacuum hose. His melody floated through the gum tree forest, mingling with the voices of the other birds.

Megalong Valley

Hike to Hanging Rock

      One of the iconic spots in Australia for me is Hanging Rock in the Blue Mountains. It's not the same place as that depicted in the movie “Picnic at Hanging Rock”, which is in the state of Victoria. Photos of it often show up when images of the Blue Mountains are Googled. We left our campground and drove to the town of Blackheath where we had a magnificent view of the overlapping orange cliffs towering over the gray green eucalyptus forest in the valley at Govett's Leap.

Govett's Leap

A short drive led us to a fire trail leading to Burramoko Head. We made the three mile hike through a young grey gum woods to the viewpoint overlooking Hanging Rock. As opposed to Echo Point we were the only ones there, although a couple other groups of people showed up later while we picnicked and explored the cliff edge.

Looking down on Hanging Rock

There is a two yard gap between the edge of the cliff and the triangular top of Hanging Rock. I had read that it is considered a bit of a risk to jump the opening, and in observing it from the overlook it did look a bit intimidating. Diana said it was foolish to even consider it, but I said when we get over there and if it isn't scary at all we should cross over.

Hanging Rock

Well, the jump would have definitely been doable, and if Diana hadn't kept saying she hasn't seen her grandchildren yet I think we would have made the leap. Certainly all of the kids would have gone over the gap. But I was satisfied to take my photos and pass. We were impressed however how high up the overlook was where we'd eaten lunch. I sent Diana back up so I could get a photo, and here it is:

There's Diana standing on the edge of the cliff

Can you see her way at the top?

Cliff continues way down there

      I'm glad Kristy isn't here, she'd probably want to climb it!

Should have bought this

We walked back to the LC and I checked out a vehicle that we should have bought for our trip through Australia:

All it needs is a paint job and an roof rack!

We drove for a couple hours headed to a camp site, passing through a rolling landscape of orchards, vineyards, small horse and cattle ranches and roadside pie stands mixed with areas of woods. It reminded me of the Napa Valley. When we entered the Wollemi National Park, which was a forest reserve on the rolling hills, the traffic, such as it was, consisted mostly of motorcycles and trucks.

I kept my eye on the fuel indicator, since according to the map we were a fair distance from civilization and I wasn't sure we had a fair amount of petrol left. The LC, like many Australian 4WDs, has two tanks, 90 liters each. We will be getting around 300 – 350 miles per tank, which gives us a pretty good range if both tanks are full, but we hadn't filled the 2^nd tank when we first bought the car. I wasn't too worried about running out of gas, but was relieved when we approached a small roadhouse with two fuel pumps. I filled both tanks, which cost nearly $200, but now I won't have to worry about running out anymore, since I'll keep the second tank only for emergencies.

We'd planned to stop at a free campsite referenced in our Camping6 book, but with a couple of hours of driving to go and only about an hour of light left we pulled into the Grey Gum Tree Cafe, which was a couple acre property carved out of the forest. They had free camping, picnic tables, and only one other camper, a skinny bearded guy living out of a small minivan pulling a homemade enclosed trailer full of junk. We were glad to be able to get off the road, set up our tent, and cook a quick meal of stir-fried veggies and rice.