Day 5 return from Barrington

We woke up to so much mist that I could not see the little hut on the other side of the river. It was cold first thing this morning and again wondered if this would lift before we left. The check-out was before 10 am and so there was no rush. There were steps leading down to river which we had not ventured down due to the rain. This morning since it was dry Paul decided to venture down and have a look at the river.

River Barrington

Local Mushrooms

He returned saying it was wet and slippery and the river was in full flow this morning. Indeed every night the noise of the river woke us up at least a couple of times. But as we made breakfast we watched the mist lifting and the sun shine on the mountains as they emerged from the mists. The early morning light making for some good pics I think.

Misty Morning 

Where is the sun?

Can see the rushing river at the bottom

Hills unveiled by the emerging sunshine

And it is a beautiful morning

Light piercing through the trees 

All bags packed and stowed into the boot and one last check before we handed over the keys and got back on the road to home. Since the day before I had been unable to get the pic of the road sign to Darawank we thought maybe we should go back down The Lakes Way and drive back through Forster. There was another motive for going down this road again. Any guesses? Oh yes the gelato shop…..

At last the famous sign

YUM YUM

One last look at the local pelican and this time the Tuncurry-Forster Bridge could be seen well and so this picture of it is my own. The one in the earlier blog was from net and it lost the colour in copying it.

Roosting

Tuncurry-Forster Bridge

Going through Booti Booti National Park this time we saw a lot of sea eagles – one or two flying and three sitting on telegraph poles but there was no place to stop to take pics. I have seen sea eagles at Gosford before and it seems they are along the coast. The Lakes Way goes along the Myall Lakes and meets up with highway at Bulahdelah. Just before we reach Bulahdelah there is The Grandis, on the western edge of Myall Lakes National Park. Here is the tallest tree in Australia. It is a 400 years old Eucalyptus Grandis or commonly known as a Flooded Gum ground circumference of 11.5 metres and 76.2m high. But the turn off was hidden and we drove past before we realised it was there. Once on the highway I offered to take over the driving for a bit as I felt guilty for not doing any driving so far. When we were going the M1 seemed to seamlessly turn into Pacific Highway as you turn from Maitland to go north. But returning back we accidently got on to the road to Newcastle instead of turning towards Maitland. Ah well…. we got to see parts of Newcastle which we wound not have seen otherwise. Fortunately there was a city bypass route that took us back to M1.

We had decided to stop at Ourimbah which is the exit just before Gosford for lunch. However, with the unwanted detour and roadworks we did not get to Ourimbah till about 2 pm. Once before we had stopped here for a break and visited the garden centre that is just off the exit. It is a lovely place to stop and have a cup of tea and cake. This time it was an orange and poppy seed cake for me and Paul had raspberry one. Since we had ice creams in the morning it did not matter that we missed lunch and went straight to tea as nothing else was left in the café.

The rest of the drive was easy and routine as we have often driven down this part of the M1. We hit the school time and so the progress was slow. Reached home about 4 30 pm and waved to next door neighbour that we were back!