With our big renovations looming Sue squeezed in a visit before we packed up and moved out of the house for 3 months. We had a few days taking Sue to the beach and snorkelling in Clovelly, and a lovely afternoon in the rocks climbing the pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge to take in the views from the top.
Having spent a lovely day in Kangaroo Valley a few months earlier we were keen to go back and explore properly. With a long weekend booked off, and making the most of Anzac Day on a Tuesday we had found a lovely cottage on the edge of town and drove down on Friday evening. We spent a lovely day wandering around the town, checking out the antique shops and homeware stores, then searched for Jasper on the stoney river bank. That night we drove out to a nearby camp sight to see if we could spot wombats - we hit the jackpot. There was a big mummy wombat sitting in the mouth of a burrow, then her little baby came out to join her. As dusk gathered more and more wombats emerged from their burrows and munched away at the grass, oblivious to our delighted squeals!
The next day the nearby pioneer village was open, with blacksmiths, butter making and old style school lessons to attend. I'd read about a gorgeous road by a river just outside of the town, so we headed there for a picnic lunch, stopping by the local community hall on a patch of grass at the roadside. It wasn't the best place to stop. Within minutes our patch of serenity was filled with parking cars - a film premiere was taking place at the hall! After a trip to the stunning waterfall at Fitzroy Falls we had another dusk drive out to the countryside, this time to spot kangaroos - again we were delighted to spot a huge mob out in the field by the side of the road.
For our last day we drove out to the coast at Shoalhaven Heads for a swim at the deserted beach, some beach combing and sliding down the dunes.
It was Anzac Day when we left Kangaroo Valley, so before we departed we wandered down to the town centre to watch the ceremony. It was lovely to watch the small community come together to honour their fallen ancestors, and afterwards the bakery passed around free sausage rolls. Very special. We broke up the drive back with a stop outside Nowra to walk the Bomaderry Creek Walking Track. It looked like a simple loop on the map but after walking along one side of the creek for over an hour we decided we would never come to the crossing to come back the other side and retraced our steps. Then it started raining. We were all exhausted by the time we got back to the car!