On Friday night we left Sydney at about 8 and started our journey up to Bellingen. The ride was around 7- 8 hours which is actually less than I had expected. I had thought 9 to 10 hours. Along the way there were tons of signs promoting the driver revive stops. These are set up at points along the highway and they serve free tea, coffee, hot chocolate etc and biscuits. We made a little stop off. I tried the hot chocolate but I can't say I was overly impressed, the biscuits were very good though. I was really excited at the prospect of my camera being able to take pictures of darkness rather than pixels.
We made it to the house at about 3am which gave us just enough time to rest before our first day. We were woken by what sounded like waves crashing against the house. It took me a few minutes to figure out what it was. Hundreds and hundreds of cicadas.
Day 1: This was largely dominated by the market. It was one of the biggest markets of the year and took up the better part of a park. The stalls were two to three shops wide and outlined a very big pitch where there were pony rides and a bouncy castle.
The big tall orange flowers fascinated me. They were called red hot pokers according to the side of their bucket. I also saw some of the most amazing chili plants that were covered in purple chilies. It was a little sad that I couldn't bring them back with me.
The walk ways had huge trees, so you'd be walking through a stall and suddenly realize that most of the wall was a trunk. I really enjoyed it.
I just liked how this looked, a mossy post with a cardboard advertisement and mosaic in behind. It summed up Bellingen pretty well somehow. Everyone seemed to have a hippie side to them, like a bigger Wakefield in a mountainous valley.
We did a bit of exploring through the town, and I noticed these.
Tom waits for me as I play with my camera. The rest of our group is heading back to the car.
The landscape around Bellingen really amazed me. It had mountains surrounding rolling hills with farms.
The purpose of our drive was to get to a river that had a swimming hole. We walked along the river to this area. The water looked incredibly green and was pretty chilly. But eventually we managed to get in and have a dip. There was even a rope to swing off of. Ben showed Tom how to do rock balancing. This is one of Ben's.
This is Tom's. Not bad for his first go.
We got back and vegged while we discussed food. (This is me playing with lightroom whoo!)
The house was full of Buddhas. Including one that was almost life size.
These are the banana trees in the back yard. I didn't know they had a purple flower on them. Apparently it just falls off and doesn't really open or anything.
The sunset.
Ben's friend came over with a smoke machine, lights and music and we sat in the backyard watching the bats fly over. There was a trampoline in the back too and we pulled that up next to the porch. It was really fun. This was followed by a walk up a mountain to a look out. Along the way we found glow in the dark mushrooms which I didn't even know existed for real! I got to hold one but unfortunately didn't have my camera. They gave off so much light you could see all the detail in them and looked a very bright green. Totally amazing! I was reminded of Alice and Wonderland.
To close, here are the bats. They looked much bigger in person and some would swoop down into the neighbours yards.
No comments:
Post a Comment