Sydney to Eden, New South Wales

The charms of Sydney were utterly lost on me.  A delayed flight, a long wait in the rain for the shuttle bus, an (unsuccessful) attempt to charge me 250% of the agreed price for the car rental, massive rush-hour traffic jams, even more heavy rain as we crawled out of the metropolis, all combined to reinforce my prior decision to avoid the number one tourist destination in Oz.

Fortunately, things looked up almost immediately.  A visit to The National Botanical Gardens in Canberra provided a more fitting introduction to mainland Australia.  The several photos below give a good representation of what my brother and I saw; although most of the flowers were not in bloom since it was Austral autumn, the green oasis set amid the park-like city of Canberra deserved more time than we could spare from our itinerary.

Leaving Canberra after a tasty and filling Lebanese lunch, we continued South and West to Jindabyne, which provided a convenient base for the ascent of Mount Kosciuszko.  The “climb” was in fact nothing more than an overly-long, though scenic, walk up a dirt track to the summit.  With an early start from Charlotte Pass, we avoided most of the crowds that start from the top of the ski lift from Thredbo later in the morning, an even less-deserving manner to claim the high point in Australia.  Indeed, a far more interesting summit was the nearby Mount Townsend, accessed from a use trail off the Main Ranges Track, faint at times, to the second highest point in Australia, at 2,209 meters, a mere 19 meters lower than its far more famous neighbor.  The Vagabond Hiker managed to miss the use trail altogether and consequently ended up bushwhacking up a nearby mountain completely unnecessary to accomplishing the objective.  Whereas several hundred or more ascend Kossie daily, only five of us summitted Mt. Townsend that day.  Fortunately, a couple was on the summit when I arrived, so I was spared the indignity of having to take a selfie (my brother skipped this optional extension).

Most of our time in New South Wales was spent on the far south coast, also known as the Sapphire Coast.  My brother and I based our day trips from an AirBnB cottage in the small coastal town of Eden, set on the picturesque Twofold Bay and boasting (at least according to its tourist literature) the third deepest natural harbor in the southern hemisphere.  Coastal hikes in Eden and in Ben Boyd National Park directly to the south, a visit to a local wild animal park and nature reserve, and a cardio hike up nearby Mt. Imlay provided highlights for our week in Eden.

My next post will be “The Road to Alice,” featuring highlights from a 7-day drive up to Alice Springs in the Red Center of Australia.  Stay tuned!

The Vagabond Hiker