One of my favourite places to sit and contemplate is by the rainforest creek that borders the pasture. I’ve sat here many times: when the creek was dry, and when the water simply trickled. During Easter there was a rush of water due to a wet few weeks, which was a joy to the senses.
We’ve come to the end of our rural Easter. Hope the experience has been a contemplative one.
But if the leaves weren’t quite turning, the flowers were putting on a show, particularly the grevilleas.
Being an earlier than usual Easter this year, the leaves were only starting to turn on the long avenue.
Some of the leaves had turned.
But most hadn’t.
It of course doesn’t make it less of a treat to walk down in all weathers.
Speaking of clouds, we saw some majestic cloud formations over Easter as a front moved across the escarpment. This brought a ton of rain on Saturday. Strangely, the rain was very localised – even Kiama, a mere 10km away, got hardly any rain.
I spent Easter at Jamberoo Abbey with my good friend M from Ahh… Serenity. It was really well worth driving 1.5 hours – the last half hour through rolling green hills and rainforest – to stay 3 days away from the stresses of the city.
This year we scored great rooms with views of the escarpment. I certainly enjoyed every minute of staring out at the elements, whether in sun…
Or in cloud.
Not a village as such, but a mountain pass, and the end of the sleepy hollows theme – for now.
Brown Mountain is where the Snowy Mountains Highway winds its way up to the high country plateau. It is also features some impressive trees (mountain ash perhaps) that you can view via a little path from the lookout car park.
It was good that I got to see them, because there won’t be many trees for the next 100km or so as I drive across the Monaro Plain to Cooma and the high country.
So we leave the South Coast behind, and now you know what’s coming next – the Snowy Mountains!
The day was forecasted to be a scorcher, so it wasn’t surprising that Merimbula and the Bega Valley was shrouded in heavy mist. It was rather dangerous to stop somewhere in the mist, so as soon as I’d driven above it, I stopped to take this photo of the valley below.
I didn’t mean to stop at all at Wolumla, only that I thought I’d left something back at Merimbula, 15km away in the Bega Valley (thankfully I didn’t). After checking the boot, I noticed this interesting building…
The sign says “Gunpowder Trading Post”. I don’t think it’s within the law to sell such things anymore, but it tells you a lot about the history of the town, don’t you think?
Central Tilba is comprised of a series of restored miners cottages. They are very colourful, and very cute! It is no doubt a tourist area, remeniscent of the Southern Highlands town of Berrima, with a bit of Far North Coast new age style thrown in.
The cottages themselves are lovely. My work colleague, a former country boy, was all very blase about my fascination with cottages, but they are lovely. Even the pub is rather cute! I really wouldn’t mind having one of these cottages on the edge of town, with a little garden, overlooking the valley.
The Tilba Valley is the cutest place. About an hour south of Batemans Bay, and only 5km long, it has two villages, former mining towns, overshadowed by limestone outcrops.
Like in most towns in Australia, one can’t escape the shadows of war. This memorial, however, is more scenic than most.
Static and Silence 