East Coast Adventures in the Red Dragon

Ali met me at Sydney airport, lively even after 64 days of work with only 4 days off (that is how much Ali loves his job!), to begin our two week jaunt together. Whizzing along the freeways and weaving through the streets of Sydney in the Red Dragon (Ali's well-kitted road runner), we navigated our way down a series of one-way streets (only one against the flow of traffic!) to Chinatown and Kate and Kees' hotel. Coping well with their jet-lag Kate and Kees were looking well, if not a tad sunburnt!, telling us of their previous day spent in Sydney as we wandered along Darling Harbour for some food and lots of chat.

After a good nights sleep Ali was keen to swim in the sea (as he feels it is rude not to do so when on the coast and has been in landlocked Canberra for the past month!) so we headed for Tamabara beach, but ended up at Coogee so swam there instead before heading to the hills! Waiting until we were clear of the last Sydney suburb (as the boys were up front and concentrating on map reading!) Kate and I began the first of many Christmas carols as we headed west for the Blue Mountains.

The Blue Mountains National Park lies West of Sydney and as we wound our way along the snaking roads into the heart of the MacArthur National Park and the town of Katoomba it was clear why Sydneysiders would use this as a weekend retreat. The scenery was stunning with the sea of eucalyptus trees giving the mountainsides a hazy blue appearance – hence the name – Blue Mountains. Arriving at Echo Point, a lookout spot that allowed us to see into the Jamieson Valley (bushfire havoc from the previous week all too apparent) and the Three Sisters rock formation to the south, we watched as Kate shivered and the mist rolled in. Katoomba means “shining tumbling water” – we are not sure if this applies to the constant rainfall or the rivers! – as during our time in Katoomba the mist that it is famed for was constantly rolling in, drizzle in the air. Ali’s packing instructions to his sisters had been: one warm jumper and three pairs of pants – resulting in a quick shopping spree to purchase a fleece each!

Apart from the weather and the fact the boys turned up the radio every time Kate and I started to sing, the trip was off to a fantastic start. It must have been a few years now since Kate, Ali and I have spent two WHOLE weeks together, and for Kees to be stuck with the Rose siblings for that long must be any brother-in-laws idea of hell! Ali, who has always been pretty tolerant of his sisters has gained even more patience since working with groups of 14 year old girls in the outdoor industry. His way of handling Kate's incessant questions (What shoes should I wear? Should I put suncream on now? . . .) was impressive and only a few times did he utter the words usually saved for the 14 year olds - "Suck it up Princess!"

[Cheese Dreams for brekie in the back of the Red Dragon - felt like we were in Aviemore!]

The Jenolan Caves, now part of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, would previous to the European settlement in the 1830s have been the traditional territory of both the Gundungurra and Wiradjuri Aboriinal people who knew it as Binomil. Now the caves are open to the public and we took a self-guided tour around the entrance before doing a guided tour through the heart of the Chifley Cave. The bushwalking in this area is fantastic and after a rather wet day of wine-tasting and visiting the Jenolan Caves we made the most of the clear skies walking through the Grand Canyon. Much of the National Park was closed due to the bush fires but we strolled along one of the open tracks from Neates Glen to Even's Lookout, stopping at waterfalls and to peer down into gullies where we could here people canyoning along the riverbed below the track.

Leaving the Blue Mountains we drove on to the National Park where we had a chilled day reading on the banks of a river that we had hoped we could swim/kayak in but was dry due to the drought that is affecting much of the area, followed by a pleasant night camping (having been driven to bed by the infestation of flying ants who were attracted to our gas lamp!). Waking in the morning to the sound of a very noisy Richard Attenborough (aka Kate Rose!) scrambling around outside our tents trying to alert Kees to the kangaroos grazing outside whilst wildly snapping photographs before these bouncy friends hopped off because of the noisy intrusion to their morning.



Driving on to Canberra, the easiest Capital City in the world to enter and navigate, we did a couple of trips to the bus station, firstly to collect Chi, a Japanese friend I made in Margaret River, and secondly to collect our cousin Simon, mum’s eldest brother’s son. With a full crew on board and a huge supermarket and bottle-o shop piled in too we headed back to Ali’s ranch. The national base for Outward Bound Australia is in a place called Tharwa, about a 40 minute drive from Canberra.
We had the most bizarre Christmas Eve ever . . . gone are the days of posting a letter up the chimney to santa, putting out mince pies, whisky and carrots for santa and rudolf, running around buying last minute pressies and doing a mad supermarket dash with fifty million other people. . . this Christmas Eve we abseiled 40metres into a dark hole before going caving in Wee Jasper!! This was promptly followed by a dip in Swamp Creek to wash off the bat shit! It really was a fantastic day and a good laugh - certainly one to remember!

[The gang in their caving gear]


[Simon is the first to descend the 40 metres into the cave]


[Ali instrucing his "wee" sis]

[The cave from the inside (you can see the rope dangling from where we abseiled in]

Us girlies then tried to make the lower cottage festive by creating a tree from a big twig and bits of streamer. This, combined with the normal tradition of stopping Kate from feeling ALL the pressies under the tree, made it all feel very Christmassy!

Despite the extreme fire ban in the ACT just now we were able to have an aussie style BBQ for Christmas. After a champagne breakie, opening - and then wearing - all our new Christmas pressies (thanks everyone for the lovely pressies!), a didgeridoo and ukulele session and a walk with the kangaroos (complete with boules and rugby!) it was time for the BBQ . . .

[Yeah - We really are wearing all our pressies!]

[Great hilarity as Kate tried to play the didgeridoo!]

[Cousin Simon on the ukulele]

[Nice socks Kees!]

[Brokeback Simon!]

[Don't you turn your back on me!] [The kangaroos on our Christmas day walk - captured on camera by Ali]

[Our rugby pose!]

[Our Christmas Day BBQ: Thanks Moy and Badger for the fantastic feast!]

Boxing day saw Ali and Simon disappear for a climb while Chi and I made sushi for lunch:

The following couple of days were spent relaxing in massage chairs; doing an aboriginal plant walk through the botanical gardens; visiting the National Museum of Australia and chilling out at Ali's. It was then time for Simon to head back up North and for Ali, Kate, Kees, Chi and I to venture on down to the Snowy Mountains for a few days before heading back to Sydney for Hogmanay.


We reached Jindabyne and its man-made lake, Lake Jindabyne, that lie on the edge of the Snowy River and the Snowy Mountains. Hoping to camp here for two nights we wandered around the town trying to arrange horse riding (not popular with everyone - but a life-long dream from watching our favourite childhood film: The Man from Snowy River!) and a walk up Mount Kosciuszko, Australia's highest summit. Leaving Jindabyne and its extensive ski hire shops behind we wound our way up into the Kosciuszko National Park to camp for the night, but as we chugged along up the hill the Red Dragon began to stutter and gasp, puffs of black smoke behind us, and we stopped to let the radiator cool down. A further attempt to move allowed us to gain a few more kilometres up the mountain roads before heading downhill to a spot near where we had planned to camp where the van then gave up on us. Settling here for the night we erected the tents, ate thai curry and swatted march flies, hoping that the van radiator would be OK in the morning.

Waking early from the crows and heat we were soon packed up and ready to hit the road again, but after examining the van the boys announced that the head gasket had gone and that we would have to go back to Jindabyne - possibly in a few stages to stop and let the radiator cool before moving on again. No sooner had we began our assent did the van once again struggle and die. Ali and I headed off up to the top of the hill on foot, armed with only a mobile, pen and his wallet, but ended up hitching to Jindabyne. A few kilometres walk later, hot and tired, we took up residency in the local tow-truck reception whilst Kate, Kees and Chi whiled away the hours reading and wondering what had happened to us! 3 hours later we were all reunited for a picnic in the garage as we unloaded our gear from the Red Dragon. Unfortunately due to the proximity to New Years Eve and Ali's tight work schedule he had decided it was best to get the van towed all the way back to Tharwa than try to get it fixed in Jindabyne so we had to say goodbye to Ali and the Red Dragon in the Jindabyne garage. Not quite the plan!

The next two days were spent on the phone to sort out transport (as Kate and Kees had been hoping to borrow Ali's van for the rest of their travels), to find accomodation for new years eve (as Ali's friend was going to put us up but lived 1 hours drive from central Sydney), and travelling up to Canberra and then on to Sydney. For those who hadn't wanted to horse ride this was probably the best thing that could have happened! A disappointing end to the trip -especially as it meant we couldn't spend Hogmanay with Ali, but the laughs and stories from the past two weeks were enough to keep us happy and we ventured on to Sydney, four and not five.

See the next blog for the Hogmanay extravaganza and the adventures that Joolz, Chi and I had on the way up the coast.