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Titi and arrived in Sydney yesterday after driving up from Melbourne.
We spent a couple of nights in Wagga Wagga on the way to visit a friend and it was great to visit a country region I had never previous visited. We spent two nights at a very comfortable hotel that had been converted from an old homestead. Wagga itself was a prosperous town, the surrounding region producing beef, lamb and wheat. It was over 34c each day so we went to the local beach on the river bend of the Murrumbidgee River.
Wagga Wagga beach
After leaving Wagga we continued to the Jenolan Caves. I lived in Sydney for almost 10 years up until 2000 and never took the time to come to the Caves. Now Having visited them I can't understand why?! We took two different cave tours and they were both amazing! Stalagmites & Stalactites and amazing ribbons and columns. Beautiful underground rivers and chambers, one leading on to another. We were lucky that it was just the two of us and the guide for the first tour so as we gained time he took us in an extra tour!
River and canopy formations in Jenolan Caves
The second River Cave tour was my favorite. Over 1500 steps and ladders up and down through numerous chambers and around lakes with the most magical of formations. Two hours of bliss in the cool underground whilst up on the surface it was reaching 34c! Again we were only a small group, just 8 of us. We had the same guide on both tours with his very laconic sense of humour.
We have visited quite a few Caves during our travels. The most recent being last September in Majorca and these Caves here at Jenolan easily equaled those and without all the crowds a European site attracts. We also had the bonus of seeing a platypus in the wild swimming about in a small clear pond near the Caves. These marsupial monotremes are usually very timid and difficult to sight. I always get a kick out of seeing Australia's unique fauna.
The route to Sydney from Jenolan was via the Blue Mountains which are always a spectacle.
The Three Sisters - Blue Mountains NSW
The bird life has been wonderful too with an entire family of Kookaburras, a species of Kingfisher, making their home in the Sydney Botanical Gardens.
This morning we caught an Uber taxi(I am a recent convert) to Botany Bay for a couple of dives. The goal of these dives was to try to sight the Weedy Sea Dragon, a species of hippocampus that camouflages itself amongst the kelp. They dives were beach dives which was great as we didn't have to waste time going out on a boat. And the good news was that we saw the Sea Dragons. Quite a few of them in fact including a couple of males with large egg pouches. Some spectacular nudibranches (a kind of very colourful tiny sea slug) and huge curious blue grouper that at one point I had though was coming in for a kiss. It wasn't the most spectacular dive I have ever done but achieving our goal was very satisfying and it's always good to get some hours up in the underwater world.
Weedy Sea Dragon
View from the train of Circular Quay, Sydney Harbour