Today we drove part of the Waterfall way, this is actually 185km road from Coffs Harbour to Armidale. The suggestion is that if you just drive it you will need at least 2.5 hours one way so the route we had planned took us to the Dorrigo National Park then drove back through Cascade National Park. The first part of the drive is quite boring as it is along the Pacific Coast Motorway but after about 20km you turn off onto the drive proper and start heading up into the mountains. The first waterfall you see is Newell Falls which literally runs under the road. Luckily there is a lay-by just before the falls which we pulled into and had a great view both down the valley and at the falls, then it was back into the car and continuing along the road. Unfortunately the second waterfall you see from the road is on a series of bends with no pull in so we couldn’t get a very good look at that one. Our next stop was Dorrigo National Park. The car park by the visitor centre was completely full and just as we were about to give up we saw a sign for a picnic area that was only 1km up the road so we went up there and parked the car working on the assumption that we can easily walk 2km and the road goes there so at worst we could walk along the road. As luck would have it once we had parked the car there was a path to the lookout which gave a great view down across the valley and also had a path round to visitor information so we took that. The walk was quite nice as it was through the rainforest and we even saw a couple of birds as we were walking along. We picked up a map from the visitor centre and realised that rather by accident we had just done the first part of the Wong’s Walk which takes you to two waterfalls so after nipping to the loo and buying some water – which by the way had 10% added to the price as a ‘Boxing Day surcharge’ we set off down hill in search of the first waterfall. It is quite warm again today but being in the shade of the rainforest made it really pleasant and the walk wasn’t too steep so didn’t damage the knees too much! About half way round we came across Tristania Falls which are probably the better of the two and have a bridge right in front of them that give you a great view, although trying to get a photo of either of us in front of the falls was a little difficult. Around the bend and up the hill are Crystal Shower Falls, probably called this because they drop over the side like a shower. Again they have a bridge that goes in front of them which gives you a great view but taking photographs was even more of a challenge as this is a suspension bridge so every time somebody moves on the bridge it bounces! Despite this Chris didn’t have a problem at all getting over it, I think because you couldn’t see through the bottom and there was something pretty to look at but I could be wrong! We spent some time looking at this then started the steep climb back up the the car park. Some of the trees here are over 400 years old, but the Red Cedar that the area was famous for is virtually extinct, removed during the logging period in the late 1800’s. Having said that the trees and the vines are still spectacular, so tall and straight and the leaves make spectacular pattens where the sun shines through the canopy. We walked back to the car park which actually has a really nice picnic area n the Glade so we had our lunch sitting in the shade on one of the benches then set off to complete our journey. Our next stop was Dangar Falls, this one has a large enough basin that you can swim in, but it was quite a long walk down and we didn’t have our swim suits so we decided to just stay at the top and admire it from there. It was probably the most spectacular of all the falls but also the busiest as it was really near the road. We saw quite a few people swimming so it is obviously a popular spot. From here it was just a case of driving through Cascade National Park back to the apartment, unfortunately what the route planning software hadn’t mentioned was that this was along gravel roads so after about 25 mins where you couldn’t see anything because of the dust and we had been sliding around quite a bit we turned round and came back down Waterfall way, at least this meant that we could see the two waterfalls again. We finally arrived back at the apartment about 4.45 and after clearing everything out of the car as we have to pack up to fly to Sydney tomorrow we went to the room and had a well earned beer. We may not have walked very far today (about 5.5 miles) but yet again we have done over 80 floors!
