02-20-2020: Cambewarra, Fitzroy Falls, and Home

We awoke to a bright, sunny morning in Batemans Bay, which felt so nice after the last couple of rainy days we’ve had. We walked to a “brekky” place that was right below the Thai restaurant and had a lovely breakfast. We had checked out the menu last night and the Indian woman who spoke with us was very happy that we had returned. Her husband is the cook and they had the cutest little girl with whom we had a little exchange last evening. We commented to each other that it was great seeing an immigrant family succeeding in running a small business. They were very hospitable welcoming to us and I hope others coming in to their place are equally so to them.

Off we went on our final leg towards Bensville. It is going to be another long day, 492k, but hopefully a much more pleasant one.

We did encounter more bushfire damage early on in the day. It was amazing to see the difference between an area that had recently burned and one that had burned 8 weeks ago. The later sections showed lots of green while the other just showed scorched earth.

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Soon, though, we left the worst of the bushfire zone and returned to the lovely rolling green hills.

It was a relief to not have to drive through miles of devastation, but I’m really glad we saw it up close. There is great controversy here, as in the U.S. about forest management. Many people blame the “greenies” for preventing any type of controlled burning to eliminate the fuel load in the bush, however, there is a movement gaining traction for the use of Aboriginal concepts of burning to prevent these huge bushfires. All I know is that I saw the results of careful management of property at Tony’s. Yes, about 60% of his timber was burned, but the house was protected and the fire never got close enough to his buildings to threaten them. It takes a lot of work, but eliminating the fuel load is an important step in preventing fires.

Our next stop was an incredible one. Just past the city of Nowra, in a section of the Southern Highlands, we drove up to Cambewarra Lookout.

It was quite a drive to get up there, with a turnoff from the highway onto a narrow road, and then a turnoff onto an even narrower road that hugged the rock face on the left and had no rails on the right. It really was a one lane road so we prayed we wouldn’t meet a car coming down. It’s hard to imagine how the road was built in the late 1800s, but there it has been since then.

We arrived with no mishaps and I wasn’t prepared for what we saw from the Cambewarra Lookout.

The view from the edge of the lookout was spectacular!

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To get to the edge of the lookout you had to walk down a slanted downward path and then onto a grassy section of the hillside. Christine wasn’t too interested in doing that. She tentatively made her way down the path holding on to the railing and stopped behind Lou and kept a tight hold.

It was just a bit early for lunch, but morning tea sounded good. Morning or afternoon tea means a cuppa with a sweet. And wow did we ever have the most spectacular cuppa and sweet. I went into the teahouse to order scones, but they had just put a batch into the oven so they wouldn’t be ready for a while. Our second choice was carrot cake and cappuccino. Oh my!

It was the best carrot cake any of us had ever had and Lou couldn’t get over the beauty of his cappuccino. We ate every morsel of that cake with each of us wanting to lick the plate, but refraining from doing that. That left 3 roses which Christine put together on a plate. Lou said something about Rosie, Christine’s mother, Christine said, “and Rosina,” their grandmother, and I add Roselyn, my mother. So we had 3 roses.

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What a great stop we had at Cambewarra Lookout. A phenomenal view and a fabulous morning tea. Now on through Kangaroo Valley and to Fitzroy Falls.

We drove down off the backside of the Southern Highlands into a lush, verdant valley named Kangaroo Valley. The first inhabitants of Kangaroo Valley were the Australian Aboriginal Wodi-Wodi people, who had reportedly occupied the land for around 20,000 years before the European settlement of Australia in 1788. The first recorded European sighting of the valley was in April 1812, when surveyor-explorer George Evans passed through the area as he traveled north from his exploration of Jervis Bay. Evans reportedly claimed that the valley offered a view that “no painter could beautify.” I would agree with that. It was idyllic with green pastures of grazing dairy cows nestled in a relatively narrow valley between nice hills. The little village of Kangaroo Valley had several heritage buildings, but one of the top sights in the area is Hampden Bridge.

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Hampden Bridge is Australia’s last surviving suspension bridge of the 19th century. Not only has it enormous aesthetic appeal but it is considered very rare because the majority of the structure is original. The 28 high tensile steel cables are original and they are the only part of the bridge not sourced locally, they came from England. The underpinnings of the bridge roadway are the original timbers, but have since been supported with I-beams. This Victorian bridge was a totally unexpected structure, but certainly marked the arrival into a very beautiful valley.

Our next stop was Fitzroy Falls, another spectacular place. As we reached the end of the valley we headed into the hills again. Lou pointed out that from down below we could just see two waterfalls high on the hill. I’ll put this photo in and will ask whether you can find the two waterfalls.

Fitzroy Falls, named after a governor of NSW, is a wonderful waterfall that drops straight down from an escarpment. It has a drop of 81 meters (266 feet) making it much taller than Niagara Falls (51 meters, 167 feet). The first overlook was looking over the edge of the escarpment where the falls began its drop and out across the valley.

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The view out across the mountains and valley was really beautiful, especially on a nice sunny day with puffy white clouds. We then walked further along to another viewing platform, which gave a wonderful view of the whole falls.

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Cambewarra Lookout and Fitzroy Falls were the perfect end to a very long trip. We certainly covered a lot of ground in our 7-day trip. We were a little surprised to tally up the total mileage, 1830 km or 1,137 miles.

We saw a lot, learned a lot, enjoyed each other a lot and just had a ball. Even though some of our journey was through areas difficult to see, most of it was wonderful and beautiful. It was a very memorable time with Lou. Thank you so much, Lou, for taking us on this amazing journey.