Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 299 (Wednesday 26 October) - Eden & Ben Boyd National Park

8.30 a.m. I struggled to wake up today after we got to bed just after midnight (gastronomic tour de forces do take some time and do tire a boy so don’t you know), and since my gorgeous guy kept snuggling in and didn’t showing any signs of rapturously leaping from bed, and greeting the day with the sort of joy reserved for long lost lovers, and caramels ice cream sundaes, I lay there too, not really stirring apart from some Twitter meanderings till about....

10.05 a.m. (or so) when I got up, had a shower, toasted the crumpets (forgetting we had planned to cook up some scrambled eggs - d’oh!), poured the juice, and set the table for a lovely breakfast for my slowly rousing man. We did think we could wolf down breakfast - although that surely is not want one should do on this, or any other holiday when you actually have time to savour the food you’re eating - and bolt out the door in double quick time, but we didn’t, and after watching a Lifestyle Home program or two or three, we finally left at 11.55.

12.14 p.m. Grabbed some petrol at Pambula, which looks like it has a cute shopping district, which awaits exploration on our next visit, drove by Eden’s historic but still much used wharf, and then headed out to the stunning beauty of Ben Boyd National Park (escorted part of the way by an RTA truck through a very long stretch of road works), which has a great love affair with long, winding dirt roads, once again fringed by ant mounds, delicately beautiful heath flowers, and towering gums awash in rampant lush green undergrowth. Yes, the ride was over corrugated dirt and bumpy, and we had to avoid heading down to view Pinnacle Rock and City Rock, because we feared we may not make it back up the tracks, but oh the extraordinary spectacle that greeted on those parts of the parks we did reach....

1.40 p.m. After driving across 21 km of the bumpiest roads I have encountered for some time, and passing cars coming in the other direction on roads so narrow I feared we would be eternally linked to each other by the car doors, we stopped at the Disaster Bay look out - the bay was so named because of the countless ships that foundered, and were wrecked there - and were greeted by a tableau so beautiful it took my breath away. The bay sweeps in an effortless, sand-tinged arc from headland to headland, dense bush hugging it all the way around, and filled with waters so blue you can well understand why they name this area the Sapphire Coast.  Truly awe-inspiring beauty, and again so lovely that since we were there at a non peak period, that we got it all to ourselves...

2.08 p.m. I had been urged to go to see the scenery from Green Cape Lighthouse by a friend at work, and I am so glad we heeded her advice. Not only was the view up and down the coast a delight but WE SAW WHALES! Three or four of them surfacing and diving, their plumes of water spray soaring high above the waves, as their tail flukes, and backs came into, and quickly disappeared from view. It was frustrating trying to capture all this on film with our small compact cameras, and there was often a long wait between sightings of anything but we cared not. WE SAW WHALES and it was beyond magnificent, and it took all my effort to look away finally (when the sightings grew less and less frequent) and check out the beautiful heath scrub, the skinks with Cardassian armour plating along their backs (only a Star Trek : Deep Space Nine aficionado will truly understand what that means), and the heath flowers of vibrant yellow and purple. The lighthouse too was impressive, its blue and white colours a perfect match for a sky that should have been grey and showery, if you believed the weather forecasts, but which was instead gloriously blue all day with only a few stray clouds to mar the perfection. It was wonderful to inspect the lighthouse, read the history of the place, and see what their lifestyle was like (remote, and yet it appears they were the social hub of the area which makes you realise how deprived everyone else must have been!), and how hard they worked, even to get mail and supplies from nearby Bittangabee Bay...

Whale shot 1

Whale shot 2

Whale shot 3

Whale shot 4

3.15 p.m. Back down the track to Battangabee Bay, a camping site, and a sheltered bay with a ruined loading dock and storehouse, where ships would dock safe from the awful weather out near Disaster Bay, and unload the supplies needed by many people living in the area. It was another truly beautiful place, with dark rust red rocks, pools of seaweed, and odd green deflated plants that looked the beach head (literally) of an impending alien invasion, lush bright green bush land, tall ant mounds, a dark tea tree lake beyond the beach that reminds me of Lennox Head’s impressive body of water, and tumble rocks that rambled into the slow moving water. What a delight, made even more so by seeing kangaroos, including a mum with her joey kicking his leg out of the pouch and looking like he was weighing her down as she grazed, in something approaching a natural habitat, and not a wildlife park! I was enthralled and we only walked away when the kangaroos decided that the grass was greener on the other side... of the camping site. How cliched are they. We stopped briefly on the bumpy drive out to photograph the most vibrant red heath flowers before swing out onto the highway and a very late lunch in Eden...

My gorgeous guy by one of the giant ant hills scattered through the bush

4.34 p.m. We briefly stopped in to Boydtown, and the historic - so many things were historic that we ended up referring to them as ‘hysterical’ which frankly was lots more fun, and aptly captured some of the more hyperbolic claims to historical greatness - Seahorse Inn, which had a beautiful view yes, but no food, no signs of life (bar two guests sitting on the balcony of their room), and had an air about it of one of the places Dr Who visits where everything seems mysteriously and unnerving quiet mere moments before all hell breaks loose, and they are sucked into another dimension or Daleks appear from behind a curtain. Frankly it was just odd, and after a brief drive up to what looked like more hysterical houses - faux historic really, all built not that long ago - we got back on the road, still hungry, raced through Pambula where everything was shut tight, and into Eden, where we got two freezer bricks from Thrifty Link hardware so our precious Bega cheeses don’t go to crap on the drive home - before driving back to Merimbula, and chips, dips and wine for a leisurely entree (effectively a very late and much delayed lunch) at home in front of the news...

The view from the inn

8.33 p.m. Finally actual food! We did try to get into Zanzibar’s Cafe which has made it into many a Good Food Guide - they seem  very proud of the fact, splashing all across their windows - but were politely turned away so we walked down the street to the Thai Noodle House, and indifferent, if polite, service but thankfully delicious food (a chicken stir fry with chilli, pineapple and broccoli, among other things, and a yummy duck salad). Country Asian restaurant cliches be damned the food was good! But in a sign we tempted fate by going to eat dinner at a Sydney time in a country town, even a resort one, the restaurant did pack up somewhat around us, switching off the drinks machine and mopping, but, eating out gods be praised, not going all Dulwich Hill on our arses, and stacking the chairs around us. For that we were thankful but the meal was quick, and we were home by 9.20 p.m. barely an hour since we left the apartments...

10.20 p.m. Time for dessert! Fruit mince pies (early Christmas yes!), fruit and ice cream... man I love holidays since I would eat anything this bad so late at night, or often at all...