Kangaroo Valley
Thursday 26th December 2013
This is our holiday Christmas 2013 at
Kangaroo Valley NSW., we will be here from 26th December 2013 to 7th January
2014. We left home at 9am thinking we
would run into heavy traffic but we had an excellent run Jules drove all the
way. We were not sure how the car/van
would travel down the steep descent from Fitroy Falls to Kangaroo Valley as we
had not taken the van on a run like this before, all went very well. The drive on the Hume is not very exciting so
once on the road to Mittagong the drive became interesting. We arrived at Kangaroo Valley around 10.45am
& decided to go straight to the Glenmack Caravan Park
where we had booked we went in to our site & set up the weather was very humid & it seemed to take a while to set up. We had a rest then drove down to the Kangaroo River where the Hampdon Bridge
crosses, a magnificent sandstone bridge, to have a look at the water and this seemed higher than I remember rushing over a small dam then over the rocky bottom causing a rapid effect for a short distance it was quite pretty it would be hard for little children to stand near the dam area but further down the water formed a quite pool which is excellent to swim, Kangaroo Valley has a small swimming pool which is very good and clean, lots of eateries a couple of old pubs lots of visitors to the area nice little town.
where we had booked we went in to our site & set up the weather was very humid & it seemed to take a while to set up. We had a rest then drove down to the Kangaroo River where the Hampdon Bridge
crosses, a magnificent sandstone bridge, to have a look at the water and this seemed higher than I remember rushing over a small dam then over the rocky bottom causing a rapid effect for a short distance it was quite pretty it would be hard for little children to stand near the dam area but further down the water formed a quite pool which is excellent to swim, Kangaroo Valley has a small swimming pool which is very good and clean, lots of eateries a couple of old pubs lots of visitors to the area nice little town.
A storm came over Kangaroo Valley late in
the afternoon not really bad lots of thunder & lightening and rain which
left the area quite wet it petered our after about 4 hours.
Friday 27th December 2013
We woke this morning to the sun shining it
was great the park was filling up with more caravaners and campers and the
noise of cicadas which I miss at home they are such a part of summer. I must say the amenities, although old, are
very clean, lots of toilets and showers, the showers are great they have
wonderful shower roses so u can get a decent shower. Today we did a trip to Nowra as we had to get
a couple of food items, petrol and I needed a battery for my watch Nowra is
half an hours drive not far and quite a large town.
On the way back we went to Bendeela Camping Ground this has only toilets, no showers and some porta loos spread around the area it is a great place for kayaking & canoeing but personally I would not camp here. There are no swimming areas as it looks like there has been a flood and the river bank has been washed away which has left it quite high to get to the water. Went back to our van for lunch, a rest, then decided to do another small trip to Upper Kangaroo Valley Road this was a lovely trip the turnoff is 1.7km from the Hampdon Bridge and our first stop was Kellys Road 7.7km from the bridge, where we crossed a little bridge we stopped here to take some photos of the river flowing over the cobble stones very pretty back onto Kangaroo Valley Road, a further 2 kms brought us to Jarretts Road
where there is supposed to be platypus in the the river but there were some people camping and hiding away from the road and it looked like they did not want to be disturbed I hoped they were not disturbing the platypus, again the river was very beautiful. We drove further along Kangaroo Valley Road until we came to Scott's Road where there was a sign "Road Closed" not sure how far along the road was really closed we turned around and started our return journey missing out in seeing Flat Rock where there was supposedly a water fall.
On the way back we went to Bendeela Camping Ground this has only toilets, no showers and some porta loos spread around the area it is a great place for kayaking & canoeing but personally I would not camp here. There are no swimming areas as it looks like there has been a flood and the river bank has been washed away which has left it quite high to get to the water. Went back to our van for lunch, a rest, then decided to do another small trip to Upper Kangaroo Valley Road this was a lovely trip the turnoff is 1.7km from the Hampdon Bridge and our first stop was Kellys Road 7.7km from the bridge, where we crossed a little bridge we stopped here to take some photos of the river flowing over the cobble stones very pretty back onto Kangaroo Valley Road, a further 2 kms brought us to Jarretts Road
where there is supposed to be platypus in the the river but there were some people camping and hiding away from the road and it looked like they did not want to be disturbed I hoped they were not disturbing the platypus, again the river was very beautiful. We drove further along Kangaroo Valley Road until we came to Scott's Road where there was a sign "Road Closed" not sure how far along the road was really closed we turned around and started our return journey missing out in seeing Flat Rock where there was supposedly a water fall.
Just before we reached Kelly's Road on our
return journey we noticed some wooden steps in the bush we stopped to
investigate further it turned out to be an old
wooden walking suspension bridge over the Gerringong Creek, at the beginning there were a couple of wooden slats missing but not enough to worry about we stepped over the gap then onto the bridge the timber on the bridge was very old railway sleepers which were still in good nick, this was beautiful to stand in the middle of the bridge and take photos of the creek with boulders, water rippling over cobble stones, reeds growing & beautiful reflections. Back to the van and a rest, dinner, writing up notes then bed.
wooden walking suspension bridge over the Gerringong Creek, at the beginning there were a couple of wooden slats missing but not enough to worry about we stepped over the gap then onto the bridge the timber on the bridge was very old railway sleepers which were still in good nick, this was beautiful to stand in the middle of the bridge and take photos of the creek with boulders, water rippling over cobble stones, reeds growing & beautiful reflections. Back to the van and a rest, dinner, writing up notes then bed.
Friday 28th December 2013
Danielle, David and Emma are visiting for a
few days from Monday 30th December 2013 so we have changed some of our travel
plans to include them e.g. going to the beach.
Today we wanted to see Belmore Falls
we retraced our drive back up the mountain towards Fitzroy Falls, about 1km before we turn left towards Manning Lookout the road is rough with small rocks but take your time and any vehicle can take this road when the parking area is reached it is a short 150 meter walk to the actual lookout, the result is truly worth it a beautiful vista of Kangaroo Valley and rocky escarpments with tables and seating to have a picnic and enjoy the view.
we retraced our drive back up the mountain towards Fitzroy Falls, about 1km before we turn left towards Manning Lookout the road is rough with small rocks but take your time and any vehicle can take this road when the parking area is reached it is a short 150 meter walk to the actual lookout, the result is truly worth it a beautiful vista of Kangaroo Valley and rocky escarpments with tables and seating to have a picnic and enjoy the view.
After absorbing this beautiful view we
moved onto Pearsons Road to travel to Belmore Falls this was sealed for about 7
to 8 kms then you enter the Moreton National Park the road is gravel but good
some parts dry areas then into rainforest with tree ferns, grass trees and other
ferns, the gum trees were very big.
We eventually came to a creek over which
there was a causeway and this was the top of the Belmore Falls we drove a
little further on to the turn off to the Hindmarsh and Belmore Falls
Lookouts. The Hindmarsh Lookout had a
view over the valley and dairy farms but we could hear the noise of the Belmore
Falls from here you can walk to the Belmore Falls Lookout from Hindmarsh or
drive where there are picnic tables and toilets. The Falls are really worth the
trip they are stunning two falls, the top falls level to a rock dam then fall
again to the bottom of the cliff, really beautiful. We had our picnic lunch
here then returned to our van, stopping at Kangaroo Valley for bread&
veggies for dinner.
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