We awoke to bright sun and blue skies, the light filtering through the palm trees that surrounded us on two sides. I did get a cup of tea in bed then we breakfasted and readied the van for travel and were off by 0920, unusually early for us to leave a campsite. We stopped at a chemist so that Lesley could get some stronger medicine for the numerous insect bites she has acquired over the past few days, which last night made her very restless. Armed with 3 potions, we headed across country through acres and acres of sugar cane fields towards the mountains and the Eungella National Park.
Entering a river valley we saw and followed a sign for Finch Hatton Gorge and after just a few kilometers were confronted with an unpaved road which we travelled along slowly, there being a campsite sign, and then in front of us was a ford across a river. Having promised the woman who signed over the motorhome to us that we would treat it like our own, we surveyed the ford, decided we would take our own van, Cally across, and duly set off over the river to be confronted en route with several more similar river crossings.
As they were all made of concrete with steel mesh buried in them, apart from a few inches of water over the bottom of the tyres, we made good progress and arrived at the car park and information boards and decided to take the shorter walk of 2.8 km to Araluen Cascades.
We walked on a good path through the tropical forest surrounded on all sides by palms, ferns and the sounds of many hidden insects and birds. There were several beautiful butterflies and numerous small lizards called skinks which I understand are only found in this part of Australia, but I stand to be corrected by this in the know.
We heard the cascades long before we saw them. A viewing platform provided opportunities for photographs but steps led down to a couple of pools below the falls and there were already a few people, taking the plunge. Not having brought our swim wear, Lesley and I had our feet 'power washed' by very cold, soft, pure mountain water, it was a great feeling after walking the dusty forest path.
We retraced our steps to where we had left the van encountering more wild life on the way including a huge cicada blocking our path, well it was much larger than any we had see before and on arrival at the car park, a Kookaburra landed in a tree and obligingly stayed there whist I took more photos and a video.
We lunched on cous cous with prawns and a sweet chilli sauce we just happened to have in the van then headed off to see if we would find a campsite and the fabled platypus. Road signs warned us of a steep climb for the next 5.5 km to a height of 648 mtrs but the van coped very well needing just a little encouragement on one or two of the sharper bends by adopting the manual gear control over the automatic box which was struggling slightly. The view from the top was truly spectacular but more of that later.
The only camp sites listed by the national park were either only for tents or one, unspecified, along an unpaved road suitable for 4 x 4 only. So we followed the signs to the platypus viewing area at Broken River and waited along with a small number of people who came and went during our 90 minute wait. But, we were rewarded by the appearance of numerous, inquisitive turtles and finally one lone platypus swan upstream past us all and disappeared around a bend. We had seen one in the wild, which is what we wanted, time to find a campsite and open that bottle of sparkling red Shiraz.
At the top of the hill we had ascended earlier a sign pointed to a camp site so we followed it and to our utter disbelief the site was perched on the edge of the mountain with a breathtaking view down Pioneer Valley to the sea beyond, though too far to be visible!
We had a choice of pitches and settled down for the evening. The owner of the Explorers Haven Eungella, Diane Cordaire, has in her time been a deacon, managed a large media company and acting agency and spent 3.5 years travelling around Oz on her own with a tent writing a book. She is an out of the box, personable woman who maintains eye contact and holds deep spiritual beliefs and sees the 'mountain' as her home and current calling. It is indeed a beautiful place, perhaps one of the best views from any campsite upon which we have stayed.
We enjoyed a glass or two of the sparkling wine with nibbles then had a tasty pasta meal, used the free wifi then went to bed.
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