Sunday, May 01, 2011

Love Bunnies

Guffaw chortle spiffing dress darling. Super day in the park, horsey horsey rah rah. Hot totty to starboard Harry. Whereto one’s fascinator? OK, that’s the discussion on the merits and demerits of the royal wedding out of the way, let’s talk in more common than an upper middle class wealthy commoner from an affluent Berkshire village terms about recent events in my life. I know, it’s all about me. Er, yeah, this blog is really isn’t it? Jeez, how vain am I?

We have been blessed with an Easter and Anzac Day public holiday fest providing five days off in a row. This offered a sedate if annoyingly not quite work-less start to the break, at times pottering around the leafy colours of Canberra once more to marvel in its comfort. A walk through Grant Street with a coffee in Manuka an adventure in yellow. A meander among the Botanic Gardens with a good book an episode in green. And a hike up Red Hill a multicoloured party of bush and burb.




The botanical love affair continued a little into Easter Sunday, an early drive up to Sydney interrupted by the Mount Annan Botanical Gardens on the edge of the suburban sprawl. A strange place, more like a country park than a garden, full of BBQs and picnics and gentle Sunday driving of Holden Utes and souped up Commodores. Closer in to the city, the sun was holding out down at Maroubra Beach, a place of sandy walks and cliff top reads before the day disappeared all too quickly, bringing a stream of endless overnight rain.



It was a decidedly dodgy start on Easter Monday for the main event of the break, a trip down south along the Grand Pacific Drive and beyond. The first part of the drive is not so grand, but you do kind of see bits of the Pacific... well Botany Bay at least, as you work your way out of the southern industrial fringed suburbs of Sydney. But such is the proximity of wilderness in Australia, this soon gives way to immense sandstone bushland in Royal National Park. At Audley, where the road crosses the river, a boatshed provides plenty of watery frolic options. The best undoubtedly a canoe paddle through a calm creek cutting its way through the sandstone. The photos etched in the mind rather than captured here for posterity, the camera remaining high and dry.



The road winds through the park and spits you out atop huge hummocks plunging down to the leaden sea. Apparently, a perfect spot to through yourself off a cliff with the aid of a hang glider. Many were and many more were watching.



More my cup of tea was a cup of tea, or actually a milkshake in a small seaside town further along the road, before the rain returns at Wollongong and the highways merge and snake their way through blue collar grit and surfside shacks. Home for a few days was Kiama, or actually, a B&B perched on a hill above Kiama.


Among many things, Kiama is blessed with a blowhole and places to eat. It’s also merrily positioned on the coast but with a lush hinterland of pasture and national park, a place where rivers plunge off the escarpment and make their way through crafty villages full of shoppes towards the wide sandy estuaries of the coast. Old favourites such as Morton National Park, the Big Potato, and Kangaroo Valley reside here.





The Grand Pacific Drive supposedly ends somewhere down here, yet the road carries on regardless, all the way to Melbourne. Kiama provides a fairly civilised stop, a chance for actually rather good Thai, and scrummy Mexican, additional weight to carry forth on the now more boringly named yet still with ironic royal connections Princes Highway. This stretch rarely touches the coast, but ploughs a few miles inland through Nowra and Ulladulla and somewhere in between this stretch is fast becoming my favourite secret coastal hideaway. So secret I am not going to name it, but needless to say it has pretty much the perfect sand, bushland and calm crystal water combination.



With the sun emerging and providing warmth, the shorts were allowed out for a little play, the feet bare and caressed with the surprisingly mellow water. It was idyllic while it lasted, but un-idyllically it didn’t last... a shower and scary seagulls further down the coast confining fish & chips to the car, a stop at Pebbly Beach thwarted by cold winds and clouds, and a final call in at Batemans to warm up with coffee and cake. Just the right combo to make the ride up and over Clyde Mountain somewhat queasy, but survivable nonetheless. Now chasing the remnants of day across the tablelands, the last vestiges of the holiday light disappeared upon entering Canberra, but this being Canberra, disappearing in a blaze of dramatic red flamed glory. A sight fit for a king. Or a commoner like me.

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