Jan. 19th, 2003 On the morning of the 12th we got up and drove back to Byron Bay to pick up Bruce and Joe. The plan was to climb Mt. Warning which is this 1157 meter mountain on the East Coast and is the first place the sun strikes in the morning every day on this continent. Of course, to see the sunrise you have to start climbing it around 5AM and it takes a celestial event a little more dramatic than the sunrise to make me get up that early. Anyhow, we found the Felixes and managed to load all their gear in our little rent-a-car and headed to the mountain around noon, after a very civilized morning spent drinking coffee and eating toast and jam. We could see the mountain from a long ways away. It's the center cone of an extinct volcano, and there is a giant circular caldera all around it about 50 km across. When we go to the start of the hiking trail it was very foggy in some serious rain forest but we got our gear on and headed up. This was definitely deeper jungle than we had been on this trip, with giant vines and huge trees all around, and the canopy top way overhead filled with birds. They have one that sounds like a cat, or maybe a baby crying, and another that sounds like someone beating on a bass drum.

Duckbilled Platypus Emu (1.17MB) Bats in the Moonlight small version (662K) large version (2.27MB) Echidna in the Road small version (262K) large version (615K) You may see a blank screen while these files are loading. (AndyNunn©2003 This video requires QuickTime. Get it here)

Right off the bat we saw bush turkeys, and later on we saw a baby bush turkey about the size of a quail and covered with fuzz. The trail was in good shape almost all the way up, but near the top it got into really rough rocks, and right at the very top it just goes almost straight up, and they have chains bolted into the rocks so you can pull yourself along. Unfortunately, when we finally reached the top it was completely clouded over. They had a big circular platform built on top with diagrams of all the mountains we should a have been able to see for 50 miles, but all we saw was fog and lots of flowers on the bushes.

We decided to stay another night in Byron Bay, and we all went out for a big seafood dinner and lots of wine. Most of the restaurants here are BYO so you load up at the bottle shop before you go. Next morning we all started heading back down the coast towards Sydney. We decide to cut inland a ways which got us out of the traffic. We hoped to see some of the desert but I guess it was still a few more miles inland.

We were trying to get back to the bats at Wingham by sunset so Bruce and Joe could see them but it was a close thing. Right near the end we saw an Echidna crossing the road. It was a blind curve, and dark was falling, but I slammed on the brakes and everyone piled out of the car, cameras flashing. The Echidna was so weird. Spiny, slow moving, with hind feet that go backwards. We got our footage and then everyone piled back in and we sped off before any other traffic caught up with us. Not that dangerous I guess, because we once went 30K without seeing another car on these back roads but still a bit dodgy.

Bats at night. click here to listen to the sound

We were just about out of daylight and still had about 30K to go so we let Sarah drive. This is risky, but she is a speed demon, and we really wanted to see the bats. Bruce and Joe huddled in the back making panicky moans while I checked and rechecked my seatbelt as Sarah went blasting over one way bridges at 130K and around curves spraying gravel and squealing tires. Finally, we made it, and raced into the Wingham Bush just as the bats started flying.

Good moonlight and 50,000 bats make a fairly spectacular view. We stayed around shooting pictures and slapping mozzies (mosquitoes) and then ran back to town to find a hotel and something to eat.

Next morning we went to visit the bats one more time, and then headed down to the Hunter Valley wine country. I took over the driving since I'm fairly indifferent to wine (us southern boys prefer beer and whisky) but Sarah and the Felixes spent many hours driving the wine stewards crazy and asking to sample everything. When Sarah got a particularly bad vintage she did her Gollum impression, hacking and saying "It Burns Usssss!" which really made her really popular with the management.

"Can we taste Every bottle?"

We spent the night at Harrigan's Irish Pub, which had motel rooms attached, good food, and lot's of Guiness beer so I spent the evening catching up with everyone else. Bruce also decided we needed to hot tub so we invaded a neighboring complex and sat around in the hot tub and pool, drinking some of the wine we had bought.

After a hard day in Wine Country

Our last day on the road and we had to get back to Sydney. Traffic was a bit of a shock after driving the back roads for a week, but we made it. I think the rental car people were a bit amazed at the huge pile of gear, trash, maps, wine, backpacks and stuff we pulled out of the car.