We had a beautiful morning and continued along the Waterfall Way, with our next stop being Ebor Falls in Guy Fawkes River NP. As I was taking a photo of the sign …
… I heard excited gasps from the car as Chris spotted a kangaroo hopping across a field. I managed to get a snap from a distance, then it’s pal hopped across the field to join him – no photo of that bit but the whole sighting made our day. Ok, so they might have been a wallabies, but they were pretty big so we are sure the were proper grey kangaroos!
19 million years ago, this would have been a very dangerous place as the Ebor Volcano was active for around a million years, changing the landscape with its lava flows and producing all the rich red basalt soil which produces the famed Dorrigo potatoes today.
The waterfall was certainly impressive and we saw the upper falls first …
… then walked round the edge of the escarpment to so see the lower falls as well.
Not only did we see this noisy chap en route – in fact we’ve been woken by kookaburras on several mornings – but also this pretty parrot who was more interested in lunch than posing for me!
We had considered Cathedral Rocks NP, with its huge granite boulders, but were put off by the 8km of gravel access road. Instead we continued to Wollomombi where we picked up sandwiches in the general store, then on to Oxley Wild Rivers NP where we took the 4km Woollombi Walking trail round the rim of the gorge. I could imagine this place must be amazing after heavy rain, but the gorge itself was stunning even though the waterfall wasn’t too big.
We found a spot for our lunch …
… and this was the view!
After a short way we came across this fence which is part of a network of fencing across Australia to keep dingoes and wild dogs from killing sheep and livestock. The original fence was built at the turn of the century and extended for over 1000km across the New England Tablelands, part of a fence running from the Queensland border to the Hunter Valley.
A bridge crossed part of the gorge …
… with more views and viewpoints.
The Waterfall Way ended in Armidale, the highest city in Australia at 980m. It was rather quiet, but had a few lovely old buildings.
We continued just a little further to Uralla, where we stopped the night at the very comfortable Bushranger Motel and had great food sitting in the courtyard at Top Pub.
Off Travelling Together 