"Rain, rain go away. Come again another day".
If the locals on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales felt like singing, no doubt this would be what was coming out of their mouth. There was a lot of water as we drove south along the NSW coast from the Qld border to our overnight destination of Forster.
Rivers were swollen, creek banks had broken, paddocks were flooded, low-lying roads were closed and some houses were cut off. While it was hard to drive at times with such heavy, seemingly endless rain, I felt grateful to be on a highway that is "high" by design, on route to somewhere dry to sleep that night. (View of the extensive flooding could be seen from our car. Photo above).
When we got to Forster, we went for a walk to go and find dinner. We found a fabulous Mexican place with views of the water and pelicans that were bravely huddled together. After eating our fill of nachos and tacos we extended our walk to check out the beach, reminding ourselves that even if we got cold and wet we - thankfully - had a hot shower and a warm bed to go back to. (Photo of us standing under shelter at the beach, above).
We were in Forster on the Friday night so we could do another new parkrun on the Saturday morning. We'd picked accommodation that was walking distance from the shops, the beach, this ocean pool and the parkrun. And whilst the sign said the pool was open, there was definitely no-one in it and it was full of foamy wash from a thrashing ocean. (Photo of the pool, above).
It didn't look good for our parkrun plans, and to our immense disappointment (but total understanding) Forster parkrun cancelled one hour before their 8 am start time to join the cancellation of all other parkruns within a 1 1/2 hour radius. So many parkruns in that whole region were drowned, flooded and washed out by the intense amount of rain they'd received.
It was slow going along the muddy tracks and there was not much to see at Fletchers lookout with all the cloud about.
Day 2, on the advice of Caroline's mate Stew who we ran into during our shopping adventures in Katoomba, we headed up to Blackheath to see what was open. The National Parks Service had closed many of the tracks due to the amount of recent rain, but there was still a few lookouts open.
We could see across the Grose Valley (on the north side of Blackheath) and even see waterfalls streaming out of several gullies and fall down huge cliff faces on the far side of this open chasm.
Day 3
We were hoping for a big hike out to Mt Solitary or something similar, but the best we could do, after checking in with the staff at the National Parks Information Centre, was an 8 kilometre loop down into the valley walking underneath a local iconic natural feature, "The Three Sisters".
(Above) Still lots of water going over the waterfall, even though it had stopped raining. And a nice shot of Mt Solitary in the middle.
And then we finally made it to Furber Steps and walked down all 951 steps! They're steep, steep, steep regardless of which way you do them. The wet weather had caused a couple of trees to fall (pictured above middle) which just added to the challenge.
To finish off, we did the short walk back to Katoomba Cascades and the car, by walking along a section of the Prince Henry Cliff Walk and finding a few muddy spots along the way! The ducks were right at home in this weather! (Photos above!)
Caught! Caroline staring at the waterfall at Pool of Siloam in another section of the National Park, a bit further east than where we spent the last couple of days.
If you've ever been to the Blue Mountains, there's a good chance you've been to Echo Point and seen this view of the famous "Three Sisters". If not, now you've seen it! (Middle photo). We popped into Scenic World at Katoomba before heading down the mountain. I love all things mechanical and wanted to see these vehicles that are designed to go up and down the cliff and into the valley even though we didn't go on it. There were lots of good coffee shops in town too, which we made the most of while we were there.
Water! And shoes! On yet another new walk for us. Neither of us had ever been here before.
South Lawson Park had another 4 decent waterfalls. Lucky us!
Of course we managed to sneak another parkrun in before heading home to Queensland. This one was at Casula Parklands where we met a few other uber tourists who think the amount of travelling we do to collect new parkruns is totally normal ;)
Thanks for joining me on our adventure. It's hard to believe this was just under a year ago. In some ways it feels like it was a decade ago and in others, like it was just yesterday.