Aussie Roadtrip: Jervis Bay and Australia's smallest territory

After stopping off for coffees at Café Llewellyn, which had been taken over and renamed Drift, we left Newcastle. Phone kerfuffle’s have followed us since we left Melbourne and today reached an all time high. For a large part of the trip we have had 4 phones and 2 sims, with my sim fitting in the two worst phones. My iPhone, having survived the world, began to only function after a burst in the fridge. Occasionally holding it in front of the car air conditioner would help. After many complicated swapping of SIMs and incompatibility problems all up the east coast, a frustrated person (okay it was me) may have put a SIM card in a micro SD slot. That is, jammed it in the slot where it doesn’t belong. This meant a rather longer than intended stop in a Wollongong shopping centre for repairs. To further the pain of the day, I bent my earring whilst removing a SIM card from the iPhone and later accidentally threw both SIM card and earrings into a bin at a lighthouse stop. DOLPHIN SANDS ROAD!!!

In my defence, I had rather a tumultuous morning of illness that involved Rob driving frantically in circles looking for a bathroom. I then had to break up a friendly gang of bikies to get to the toilet. 

In good news, I recovered my plastic pocket containing earring and SIM card from the bin before we left the Kiama Blowhole. (Unfortunately I think the bus driver parked next to the bin probably thinks I am a drug runner.) I also began to feel better late afternoon. 

Should you be interested, the Kiama Blowhole is an interesting site to visit (best done at high tide if you can manage it, although it still makes impressive sounds at low tide) that was first documented by Europeans in the late 18^th century.  It’s called a blowhole because it does a pretty neat impression of a whale when conditions are right.  The site is even topped with a chronologically impaired lighthouse.

Kiama Blowhole

Kiama Lighthouse (celebrating 100 years of the ANZAC)

Despite our best efforts, we made it to the Jervis Bay Caravan Park, which was a lovely spot almost at the mouth of Currambene Creek. Features include a solar heated spa, a pool with a slippery slide large enough for big kids (these two included), boatramp, jacarandas, bottle brushes, ducks, Charlie the dancing corella, king parrots, and a close and terrifyingly loud possum and away from any built up towns.  A highly rateable place to camp or stay although we would like to pose an open question to Australia; when, how and why did it become ‘normal’ to turn caravans into permanent fixtures with decks and other attachments?

TENT PHOTO!

Charlie the Corella

A day to explore Jervis Bay (while being observed by a Royal Australian Navy helicopter) introduced us to many marvels of the area.  Those marvels being beautiful white sands, clear turquoise waters, talkative black cockatoos, occasional cyclonic winds, flying sticks, leaping dry leaves and tremendous heat.  

Black cockatoo

Staying cool on a roasting hot day

Unfortunately the latter elements combined to create that horrifying element of the Australian landscape; an out of control bushfire we could see burning on the far side of the bay near the cleverly named Point Perpendicular.  At one point the only clear landmark to be made out through the smoke was the lighthouse standing tall atop the rocks.  Since leaving Jervis we found out that a live mortar fire exercise from the ADF Beecroft Weapons Range (where a friend may or may not have been training) went on at the time of the fire causing much speculation. Firefighters contained the blaze just 700 metres from homes in nearby Currarong.

Beautiful Jervis Bay waters near Huskisson

Jervis Bay with the bushfire plume in the distance

Lighthouse through the bushfire haze (and you can see why it is called Point Perpendicular)

It was scorching on Huskisson Beach mid-morning. We interchanged 10 minutes reading with 5 minutes swimming and kept up the routine until the sun got far too hot. Taking refuge at café in town for some postcard writing, we enjoyed some cool drinks and avoided the most harmful rays of the day. By the time we had taken a short wander around town, driven towards Hyam’s Beach and lunched at a nearby picnic table, the afternoon sun was not as severe. Chinaman’s Beach (name unexplained on the net) was beautiful but the wind/sand combination pierced our skin and we relocated to our intended destination, the somewhat more sheltered Hyam’s Beach. The shores reputedly have some of the whitest sand in the world. Needless to say we resumed our swim/reading routine from the morning, this time with a tennis ball to keep us distracted from the now increasingly cool waters.

Hyam's Beach

Rob goes exploring (bushfire smoke on the right) - Chinaman's Beach

Rob sitting amongst the rocks - Chinaman's Beach

Sunrise from our campsite

Ducks at sunrise

Jervis Bay is certainly a lovely area and before I knew more about the history of our country I could speculate as to why the ACT snatched part of it up. Turns out that part of Jervis Bay was surrendered by NSW in 1915 to provide Canberra with a seaport. I originally thought the whole area was part of the ACT, but in fact the Jervis Bay Territory owned by the Commonwealth included the southern settlements of Greenpatch, Hyams Beach and Bowen Island. The northern part of the bay is part of NSW. Therefore we were actually hopping between NSW and ACT for the day. Nice to know!

County Limerick and County Clare - Ireland Roadtrip Part 5

Adare
From Killarney we drove north into County Limerick, stopping in the pretty village of Adare for lunch. Here, I had one of the best salads of the trip: goats cheese and walnut! 

Whilst in Adare we walked through the gardens, took a peek into the monastery and learnt about the history of the area at the town's heritage exhibition. We also admired the thatched roof houses. One of the houses, unfortunately, had experienced a rather damaging fire. Probably quite a hazard of the housing style, as humorously pointed out by a book left in that very houses' window!

Thatched house, Adare

Someone has a sense of humour!

Sad house, Adare

Fire hazard but beautiful

Still room for the coloured houses, Adare

Whilst in town Rob also did some washing up at the old communal laundry spot

Limerick
Ireland does not have a shortage of castles. After having waved at Desmond castle on the way out of Adare, before we knew it the river Shannon ran along side us and King John's Castle loomed over us. Rob had a terrible battle with hiccups as we purchased our tickets, resulting in him drinking a glass of water upside down outside the castle doors. Just as the receptionist has predicted: it worked!

There was a lot to see at the castle because although the structure itself was built in 1200 and is extremely well preserved, the site actually dates back to Viking times. The castle had several exhibitions on Limerick's history. I was quite interested in hearing about the Great Siege of 1642 that devastated the town and castle. All our visits to castles and fortresses have made me think a lot about castle warfare. It just seems like no matter how good your defensive forces are, in the end you are usually, in one way or another, a sitting duck. It would be such a frightening experience to say the least. Of course, I always picture the great battles in Game of Thrones whenever I think about these things.

King John's Castle

There were some great views over the river and town from the castle. I even spotted some kids in zorb balls...something I haven't tried and can't quite decide if I would love or hate. Let's put that decision on the back burner!

A view over Limerick country (and county I guess)

To County Clare!
Post castle adventure we drove to Ennistimon where we would be spending two nights. Although we would not be spending a great deal of time in the town itself, Ennistimon was a charming little town. Our Airbnb host, John, was very welcoming and we had a chat with him over tea; about being an Airbnb host, house prices and Ireland's economy. In a lot of ways Airbnb (and couch surfing) really have the potential to add so much to a trip. We are yet to have a negative experience. (More on Airbnb and its advantages in posts to come!)

Cliffs of Moher
The Cliffs of Moher were a part of Ireland we were most excited about visiting. The morning greeted us with fog...lots of fog:

The foggy serial part 2

Once at the cliffs the lady at the ticket booth checked we wanted to go in, "Before you buy tickets, you know you can't see anything right?" We took the risk and were thrilled that after some time in the visitor's centre, the fog had moved on!

Mum and me and the beautiful cliffs

The Cliffs of Moher are one of those places that leave you feeling so insignificant. The huge scaling walls and waves crashing below are awesome, in the true sense of the word. The cliffs stretch for 8 kilometres and are 214 metres at their highest point. They certainly were a spectacular sight. 

Probably the human visit to this particular tourist attraction has the aliens laughing. On the surface us humans are paying to park our cars and stand gawking at one section of cliffs, when we could travel a bit further down coast without all the hassles. 

I was pretty annoyed at one thing on our visit:

A rant
The visitors centre was built into the hillside to be environmentally sensitive in its use of energy and to ensure it was not an eyesore. Unfortunately it seems like there are problems trying for the same thing on the cliffs themselves. There are good fences up in some spots to stop people and their footsteps from further eroding the cliffs. However, more can definitely be done in much of the area. Unless you set up proper trails and fences, people are going to go where they can to get a better photo and, in the process, erode the cliff and risk their own safety. When we were there people of all ages were struggling with the mud, puddles and lack of a proper path. I think it is a shame that more of the entrance fee does not seem to be going towards the cliffs themselves. After all, the cliffs are what people are there to see.

Rob and me at one of the better walls!

Galway
We also briefly visited Galway from Ennistimon. It was a nice walk around the harbour and a lovely day. I heard someone nearby asking their husband to quickly pull the camera out while the sun was shining! The town itself was full of atmosphere and might be somewhere I would go back to if given the opportunity. 

Galway harbour town

Buzzing street of Galway 

Donkey escapade
The last, unexpected, experience whilst in Ennistimon was when Rob and I made friends with some local donkeys. We sought out a sunset and were probably on private property when we met this little guy and his fellow donkey pals. They didn't want to leave us alone but eventually we continued on our walk to the waterfalls.

Friends forever!

Ennistimon's Cascades