Aug 13, 2025 Another Coastal Walk
Eden is a beautiful small town on the hills overlooking Twofold Bay which was a hub of shore based whaling for a century, from the 1820’s to the 1920’s. The ancient Aboriginal trails from the Twofold Bay seashore up through the coastal plains into ‘the Monaro’ (high-altitude plains and rugged mountains) is one of the oldest known human seasonal migration routes, and one you can still experience along The Bundian Way.
We opted to rent a car to reach some of the further points along a much shorter coastal trail, the Light to Light Walk, from one ‘would-be’ lighthouse to an actual lighthouse on Green Cape.
We started at Green Cape Lighthouse, on the tip of Green Cape, where we saw several humpback whales passing by! This is an optimal spot for whale watching from late August to November.
Our 5 mile hike took us up along cliffs and down to rocky inlets with fantastic views of geology, flora & fauna. We saw porpoises, an echidna, wallabies and even a female lyrebird in the brush!
The wallabies didn’t let us get too close!
And a super bonus was a blowhole! Unadvertised, unmarked and unexploited by tourists!!!
As we approached our turn around point, Pulpit Rock, at still quite a distance, we spotted a whale tail poking out of the water, slapping down, submerging and reemerging. We were too far away to get any pictures of it unfortunately.
So, I drew what it would have looked like from Pulpit Rock if it were still active when we got there!
Aug 11, 2025 Heading South
We had a few hours to use up this afternoon in Canberra while we waited for our evening bus to take us to Eden, 4.5 hours to the south.
We visited a small park and saw several bird species, including several curious Pukeko as they are known in New Zealand where we saw plenty of them. They are Austalasian Swamphens, found in 3 areas of Australia, Indonesia, New Guinea and several Pacific Islands as well as New Zealand.
Our Coach sped us into the night, with views of the Australian rolling hills, dotted with white sheep, black cows and mobs of brown kangaroos, all grazing on the winter-brown grasses.
We arrived in Eden well after dark and walked the short distance to our Airbnb, the way illuminated by the full moon reflecting off the calm ocean waters of Twofold Bay.
Aug 10, 2025 Images in Canberra
The weather was unsettled in Canberra. We finally felt like it is winter here! Mid-50 degrees (f) during the day, low-30’s (f) at night. We took a few walks into the Red Hill Nature Reserve behind the Airbnb and to the nearest grocery store.
From Red Hill Summit we spotted a few lounging kangaroos (one is lying down to the right) and got a view of the Australian Parliament building down below.
The colorful cockatoos and vermillion/kelly green king parrots flocking around the city are jewels of bright color among the brown winter leaves and bare trees.
Aug 8, 2025 Travel Day
Today we caught a bus, a train, another bus and another train to reach Canberra, ACT (that’s Australian Capital Territory).
The second bus was a ‘coach’ that took us over the precipitous Macquarie Pass that crosses the Illawarra Escarpment. The hairpin bends required the bus to reverse and do a 3 point turn, appearing like we were driving straight into the Fern covered cliff faces! We couldn’t believe how many trucks were using this route!
Our travel profile! Convenient and keeps our hands free to carry a coffee or grab a railing on a train or bus!
Aug 7, 2025 Coastal Walk Part 3
Yesterday we had a view of the Kiama Lighthouse, but we didn’t hike all the way to it. That would have added another 5 miles to our 10 mile hike!
So today we took the bus into Kiama and leisurely walked through town to see the Lighthouse up close.
Below the point on which the lighthouse stands is a rock swimming pool. No one was in it today, but there was a young couple in bathing suits goading each other to jump in. We didn’t wait around to see if they finally jumped!
On the other side of the point is the Kiama Blowhole, billed as “the Largest Blowhole in the World”. I don’t know about that, I’ve seen some big blowhole plumes on the Oregon Coast! This is what we saw today: Kiama Blowhole!
