Letho's Blog

August 27, 2011

From South West Rocks we headed towards Port Macquarie along Hat Head and Crescent Head, over rather rough 4WD tracks. There we stopped shortly:

Crossing Hastings River at North Shore via car ferry we made it into Port Macquarie.

As so often in the last days the weather was rainy, thus we only did a few short walks to look at some of the historic buildings in town and the town itself:

A drive along the shore brought us to Town Hall Beach:

Following the Lighthouse Road we reached Point Tacking Lighthouse, Australia’s third oldest lighthouse. Sadly it was in a really bad condition, hopefully undergoing repairs:

On our way to Sydney we had only one more stop: the Ellenborough Falls. To get there we took the roads via Wauchope and the Comboyne forests that might have provided for a nice surrounding – if we had been able to see anything in the fog. After a long and rainy ride we arrived at the falls which are the second highest falls from a single drop in the Southern Hemispere. And we saw this:

Actually, these are the better pictures. The fog and mist were so predominant that we refused to take the walk down to the bottom of the falls. Normally we wouldn’t have hesitated, but under these conditions we were heavily annoyed. Frustrated we left to Sydney, stopping shortly in Taree for .. well? Yes, another Australian Big Thing – this time the Big Oyster, called The Big Mistake by locals:

If we hadn’t known, we wouldn’t have recognized it. Another 350 kilometers later we arrived in Sydney – back there after almost a year! And sadly our last stop before we leave Australia as well.

Wednesday evening, 24 August – Saturday 27 August 2011

Due to bad weather (the swell was too high) our dive had to be postponed for quite a couple of days and instead of Monday we went diving on Friday. The advantage of the season and the weather was that we were the only ones who went diving that means a lot of space on the boat, a very personal dive since the dive master is only there for you and no rushing since there is nobody behind you. So we went down to do our first dive (the shark dive) and saw – nothing! : ( The downside of the weather was that the visibility was pretty bad and we could see sharks around but just the shapes of them. What a pity to have missed such a great dive! Our second dive was the actual cave dive and was awesome!
See for yourself:
First our trip to the Fish Rock Cave:

Then the shark dive:

And finally the Fish Rock cave dive:

I can’t describe what it feels like to enter an under water cave, swim through the narrow entrance only to be greated by hundreds of medium sized fish that are really really close and glitter in the remaining sunlight.

Right behind the entrance was a huge ray just lying in the sand.

Next we had to swim upwards a narrow chimney surrounded by rockwalls and even though there is enough space it feels extremely small.
Further up you reach the bubble cave where you can breath in normal air

and on we went trough the rest of the cave with another smaller ray, Frank almost stepped on a wobbegong, a comouflaged shark,

we saw lots and lots of colourful fish, lobsters and shrimps

and Ernie and Bert, two anemonefish (Nemo / clownfish).

Another shark swam our way when we left the cave but again outside the visibility was nonexistent.

Back on the boat we were told that the octopus that we had seen right in front of the cave entrance

and that our dive master had taken a picture of was actually a blue-ringed octopus, on of the most dangerous marine species that ranks around top four of the most dangerous Australian animals. Its venom is not lethal but triggers a respiratory paralysis so in order to survive you need artificial respiration. Well, we got taught well by Pro Dive in Cairns not to touch anything we don’t know and therefore were quite safe.
John (the dive shop owner) went down there too and what his super-duper camera got was more than our eyes had seen – simple astonishing:

So if you haven’t been into diving after all we have written about diving I hope this is gonna convince you to try it. For me it was the most awesome dive ever!

Apart from the dive we spend time with Patsy and her dog Jasper which was the most enthusiastic throw-the-stick-dog we have ever met and ranks on place 1 on Frank’s best dogs ever list. He therefore pushed Eric, Inga’s small dog to place 2. I still think Eric is on place 1 though, he is just too cute.

Going for a run with Jasper:

Sightseeing around South West Rocks:

And my favourite quadrichon:

We had couchsurfed with Patsy (and Dave) who had impressed us with her travelling 9 years on a boat with her husband, having had two children in between and having lived and worked in Saudi-Arabia. What a story! : )