Lyrebirds scuttle from our path, cockatoos squawk over our heads and long-beaked ibis peck around meadows, yet hydrangeas and hawthorn-like hedges line our route. It's a very different Australia that we're seeing, having been in tropical north Queensland for two months. It's no less exciting, though, and minus the crocodiles, thank goodness…
Staying in the Royal National Park, still in sight of Sydney's downtown skyline, got us off to a cracking start. Even though I've been here before I get a terrific thrill from walking its magnificent coastline.
Bonnie Vale Campground is on the other side of Port Hacking inlet to Cronulla, one of Sydney's finest beaches (reached by ferry from Bundeena). Come evening, the site crackles with kookaburras and cockatoos.
From Bundeena Wharf we walk northwest across Jibbon Beach and onto the headland to see the Aboriginal rock engravings. The images are hard to make out and I do wonder if that's a whale, or maybe it's a ray? Further around is Shelley Beach, which really shouldn't have an E in it as it is all shells.
Judging by the warning notices around it, Wedding Cake Rock must be as crumbly as icing so we skirt around it towards Marley Head, conscious that there's only the tip of New Zealand between us and South America.
Google Maps says it's a 14-hour drive to Melbourne, our ultimate destination, from Sydney on a road that I've often heard described as the most boring on earth. Our far more roundabout way starts on the scenic Grand Pacific Drive and ‘flies’ us above the ocean on the Sea Cliff Bridge.
Kiama is ‘where the sea makes a noise’ because of its blowholes. I expect to get drenched as geyser-like spouts of water shoot up, but
