Drawing Room Rocks

So Sunday the 2, September 2018 was Father's Day. So finding out how my Dad wanted to spend the day he told me he wanted me to take him to do the Drawing Room Rocks, in Berry, NSW, Australia.
Having done the walk before I warned him we would have to leave very early as this walk keeps exceptionally busy as it is a very easy short walk and highly popular with families and for "Instagram selfies".

So we left first thing in the morning turning as we got to Berry and following Woodhill Mountain Road, turning right at Brogers Creek Road and right again at a small road that looks like a driveway and parked right at the start of the walk, first people there. Which if you're not there is plenty of parking on the side along the road, or if you need to you can park down the bottom of this and just walk up, which might be easier as it is a tight squeeze and get's very packed, very quickly.

This Father's Day it was pretty wet weather so some of the photo's I'm using to show the walk are from when I went on 26, August 2017.

Our first sight was a beautiful Lyrebird on the farm to the left of the start of the walk, and the grass was glowing golden from the morning sun but the Lyrebird quickly ran before I could get a photo.
The walk begins uphill so first thing in the morning it gets your blood bumping. Along this incline the Lyrebird ran out in front of us again.

We noticed as we continued the walk up that there we holes among the ferns that we assumed were Lyrebird nests.

The route up isn't hard to find but there are some spots where you need steady footing getting up the rocks. This isn't a long walk, and it's even shorter if you're a fast walker but it is nice to stop and look back as you progress up the slope and admire your surroundings.

About three quarters of the way up there's a small path you your right you can walk up to and there is a small lookout with a little cave nearby.

After this you walk through a small path with uneven ground with lumped with tree roots. Within 5 minutes you're up at the famed Drawing Room Rocks.

It's a beautiful spot and I was lucky to be able to show it to my Dad before hordes of people appeared. After exploring around and appreciating the scenery, even pointing out Pigeon House Mountain in the distance, we walked off track exploring randomly into the bush climbing down some rocks to find a little overhang where people had either camped or at least had a fire before.

From down here we heard the first two groups of people arrive, as we climbed back up we headed back walking past at least 30 groups of people (which was unexpected in the semi-wet weather). By the time we got down to the car to head off the road was completely full all the way down to Brogers Creek Road. It's a short walk with some beautiful sights recommended to see them or get your photo at least once and if you're coming from far away and it doesn't seem worth it for such a short walk you can always make a day of it, when I first did it with my fiancée we went into Berry to the Berry Tea Shop whilst I took my Dad to Kiama to Kiama Pie Shop for a Crocodile and Asparagus Pie and a Pepper, Kangaroo and Mushroom Pie.

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Thanks for reading! - Steven

Monolith Valley

So the year has flown by and I haven't done anywhere near as much travel or adventures as I would have liked, but many things have been going on in my life. As I mentioned in my last blog post I took part in the Refugee Challenge by 'Act for Peace' which really took its toll on me. I lost four kilograms in a week and took part while still going to work, worse than the weight lose I really felt a drop in my mental state which I'm just starting to feel better from (although the warm weather could be helping too).

So feeling like getting back into it I called my Dad to organise our next adventure, Monolith Valley, a walk we wanted to do after our hike of 'The Castle' in which we wanted to take the alternate turn off to Monolith Valley. We organised a date and set off down the coast.

So we headed inwards from Milton along the dirt roads, out past Pigeon House Mountain, through Yadboro Flat where the cows were wandering around the campsite freely, and on to Long Gully where we set up camp.

Dad getting the tent ready

While setting up camp we were visited by a very friendly bird who didn't mind coming right up close to us watching what we were doing.

We soon began our camping ritual... which involved drinking. So we quenched our thirst with two pints of beer each, before cracking open our Berry bottle of Little Fat Lamb.

We began to hear a large buzzing sound while we were drinking. Wondering what it was Dad suggested a large group of bees, while I suggested someone up in The Castle/Monolith Valley car park flying a drone. We decided to walk over and investigate, which is when we met a physio from Gerringong. He was waiting on two mates from Canberra to rock up so we could hike up to the Castle that night. My Dad couldn't believe they were planning to do it when it was so close to dusk. I noticed he'd put up a slackline, to which we was super enthusiastic telling Dad and I to have a go. My Dad didn't know what it was and I had to explain it to him, having done it quite often in 2017 when I was really into my fitness and going to Dynamite Bouldering Gym in Wollongong. Dad instantly struggled, and I found it difficult too being out of practice. I tried again determined to walk it but ended up flying off and hitting the dirt with a loud thud, a cloud of dust and rolled along the ground in a fit of laughter why they both checked that I was ok.
"Probably not the best thing to be trying after drinking" I said, brushing the dirt off.
Soon his mates from Canberra arrived and we let them get ready and head on their own adventure while we returned to our campsite. My Dad still going on about he couldn't believe anyone would go at night as it's so easy to lose the path as it is.

Soon the sun set, and we lit our fire as we cracked open another pint and began cooking dinner.

That night we were again visited by my friend the Possum who visited us the last two times we were there.

We drank into the night until it was time for bed, where unlike last time  there was no howling gale of wind keeping me up, only Dad's snoring keeping me awake all night.

Morning came and we packed our camping gear away and set off.

The start of the walk wasn't as hard as I had anticipated as it'd been over 4 months since I had done any exercise (besides working a physical job), while last time we went I had been jogging, doing push ups, sit ups, chin ups, bike riding and swimming. However as we started going uphill I got hot very fast and as it was freezing I had worn my jumper which I soon took off.

We saw more wildlife this time, passing 3 Lyrebirds (all of which ran off too fast for a picture) and saw at least two Wallabies.

Working in Bush Regeneration currently I kept looking at plants I didn't know or found interesting along the way as I had done this walk before twice now so I found myself taking in new things I hadn't noticed my previous times here.

We soon reached the base of the Castle after about an hour of walking up hill where the trail becomes smaller, and involves much more scrambling.

Walking up to the base

Looking over the Bush from the Base

We continued the walk which is mostly detailed in my Castle post, which you can read here to stop me having to rehash it all.

However we not too long after the base ran into the 3 guys from the night before who'd camped on top coming down. They said they'd had a good time and got there fine and had a great view of the eclipse that had occurred early that morning (which we had missed). We said our farewells and continued hiking the trail until we reached the branch in our destination.

Excited to finally reach a new area of the walk, we took a left turn this time and headed off through the slightly overgrown path towards Monolith Valley, continuing the arduous uphill walk.

It wasn't too long a walk before we reached our first sign post.

Deciding to extend our walk we decided we'd better head downhill to Coyoyo Creek even though we knew it was going to be additional effort walking back uphill.

Boulder to the right of the sign post

We the walk down started to flatten out we noticed a toilet block, looking pretty newly constructed which we were shocked to see and we stopped for a little to have a quick snack before exploring around Coyoyo Creek which seemed like it was a point for people doing various hikes in the area to camp around.

Continuing past the spot featured above the area opens up on a cliff face over looking the whole valley on the other side of the Castle.

Coyoyo Creek Lookout, Pigeon House on the right in background

Jumper back on after stopping, instantly freezing

We continued to explore around, finding a trail leading down to what I suppose was meant to be 'Coyoyo Creek'

Guess some people would rather sleep under a rock

Standing in the dried up Creek

We soon headed back up where we both instantly started having horrendous leg cramps, realising that we truly were both a bit out of shape (I have no excuse, my Dad however was 64, 65 in exactly a weeks time).

On the way up I couldn't help snap this photo of a tree with markings that resembled a face!

I am Groot?

We reached the signpost, sore and tired but pressed onwards to Monolith Valley.

We continued our way around, soon walking past a group of 3 who'd gotten lost and taken the wrong path. They reached this area:

and instead of going across they followed that path right, leading around in a circle, whilst Dad and I investigated both paths to take before noticing a stack of rocks (known by some as Cairns) that denote the way.

We soon spotted a sign in the distance walking up close we saw that Monolith Valley was close by.

We continued up past the sign climbing up a bit (that really strained my muscles by this time of the hike). On top the path continued on again, for what probably wasn't a huge amount of time, but felt like it to my legs.

We soon bumped into 3 older males and began talking as they had camped at Long Gully with us (the only other people there) and had left very early in the morning so had done the Castle (The same day) before heading to Monolith Valley and also passed the 3 guys we'd met from the night before.

We then climbed up a little section.

Which again was nothing compared to the climbing to get up the Castle, and sure felt better than climbing frayed rope in a howling gale. After this point you are pretty much at the top, and you can see the fantastic rock formations all the way to a clearing.

We stopped and enjoyed our last bits of food, while Dad didn't want to go any further I said I wanted to investigate and see if any more came after this and there was really no clear indication that this was 'Monolith Valley' so after eating I ran off, quickly down a path just to suss out if it was worth continuing ahead as we said we wanted to head back no later than 2pm and it was already 1:10pm.

Soon it was clear that from that point on it was truly the road less traveled.

I ran down the path through the bush pushing onwards to see what was ahead, past some caves before coming to a clearing again with yet another knocked over sign, unsure of which way was which.

I just continued on past this sign running for another 5 minutes before I decided the whole area was probably Monolith Valley, and these extra walks were to other mountains to climb, such as Mt Owen, Mt Cole, Shrouded Gods, Seven Gods Pinnacle and 'Natural Arch'. Knowing we didn't have the time, or equipment I ran back to bump into the 3 people we had previously encountered lost and my Dad, coming down the trial.

"Good luck." I said before explaining that it just leads to other mountains. They decided to walk down a bit further themselves before shortly coming back and heading home while Dad and I rested at the clearing still admiring the rock formations.

We too soon headed home, overtaking them we relentlessly walked, legs and feet killing we didn't stop or slow until we had reached Dads van to head home.

The walk was great, beautiful. But left me frustrated as my spirit of adventure leaves me determined to one day make it to the top of all those other mountains. But I guess it's better to be determined rather than apathetic. I have also been inspired lately to get back into film. Which was an old passion of mine that I had abandoned more than 6 years ago, so I'm trying to convince friends to get into doing that again. In the mean time however I'll try and be a bit more active, get back out into nature and have some adventures.

If you have enjoyed this post, or my blog in general, please follow it, or like my page on facebook or follow me on Instagram.

Thanks for reading! - Steven

Cruise to Vanuatu and New Caledonia

So I recently went on a Cruise to Vanuatu and New Caledonia. Life had been pretty full on for a while for both my Wife and I and we decided we just needed a quick, easy and cheap getaway and a good deal came up to go with P&O for 10 nights and 5 stops: Nouméa, Lifou, Vanuatu, Mystery Island and Isle of Pines aboard the Pacific Explorer (because apparently I can only cruise on ships with Explorer in their name).
While actually booking the cruise the lady at Cruiseabout (now Flight Centre Cruise) asked if we had previously been on a Cruise, we said we had an that we had previously cruised with Royal Caribbean. She pulled a face, before trying to reassure us that we would still have a good time. We had heard from people that P&O was the... least fancy of the cruise ships, but we really were going for the stops more than the ship and were content with it not being a fancy or nice, just in need of a holiday which actually ended up coinciding with our 6 month wedding anniversary.

So the date came around we were packed and traveled up to Sydney to board the cruise ship. The ship was definitely smaller, but we still enjoyed the decor and I said I was excited to just relax, have a break from work, eat a bunch of food and do some trivia while at sea. So we found our way through to our room, which we noticed was much smaller than our Royal Caribbean room, but again we didn't mind. Now, before we came on my Wife had done some research into the ship and was very excited to eat at the 'Dragon Lady Restaurant' so we went to book for dinner there as well as at the other two restaurants, Angelo's and the Waterfront.
After that I suggested we buy our duty free, my Wife wanted to wait until we had been at sea, but as we were walking past and looking at the prices we decided to just get it then and there. I ended up getting 2 1L bottles of Captain Morgan Black Rum (my favourite spirit) for $15 each, and my Wife got a bottle of Jose Cuervo Gold tequila and a bottle of Gordon's gin. We then headed to our first trivia, making jokes about our memories of previous cruise trivia host favourite 'Paul Poppe'.

After finding a seat at the Explorer Hotel, out came our host a short Irish girl who introduced herself as Dora. Dora the Explorer, on-board the Pacific Explorer. "That has to be a fake name." I told my Wife who said it was probably just short for something.
It was soon into the trivia we realised what would be the worst part of our cruise. The bogans. Our cruise this time happened to be filled with many loud, obnoxious bogans. As soon as Dora read out three as 'tree' the loud mouth, obnoxious accent jokes and just loudly repeating the way she said it began, but it never stopped. It was every trivia she did for the entire cruise that these same people did it, not realising they weren't funny but loud and stupid, like big ugly children.
Anyway, not to dwell on that because I can carry on with a very long diatribe about those people, we ended up tying in first place on our very first trivia and won ourselves a P&O magnetic picture frame, which we gave to my Wife's Nan.

The Ocean at Night

 We had morning trivia the next day which was held in a bigger area and was like a game show with the cruise director Joanna, her director assistant Rory (who was hilarious and one of the best parts of the ship entertainment) which also featured the rest of the cruise director staff. Around lunchtime the next day called 'Coffee and Cake trivia' which was hosted by a guy called 'Danny' who had previously been introduced to us by Rory as 'Swanish' because he was Swedish and Spanish. The trivia by Danny featured a lot of 'tick questions' such as: How many seconds are there in a year? The answer? Well after we all sat trying to do the math, it was 12. The second of January, February...etc. Everyone groaned and my Wife lent and whispered 'what about the 22nd?' Needless to say we did not win the free coffee and cake (which was from a proper cafe where you had to pay).

Honestly even though we've only been back for 2 weeks (I went back to work the very next day) my memory of all the chronology of the events aboard the ship has already faded. So I will rattle of a few things about the ship before going through the best part of our trip: the stops.
So we ate at the Dragon Lady restaurant, which was absolutely beautiful, the food was very nice, we liked the food at the the other two as well, however the food at 'The Pantry' we found declined in quality quickly to the point were I could only really it fries from there without feeling sick.

Dragon Lady Restaurant

We also noticed the cleaning practices weren't as good, often filling our cup up with water to have soup float to the top. By the end we didn't even want to eat there. We also found that there was no 24/hour food option like the Explorer of the Sea had had, which upset my Wife cause she had looked into it online and at the time there was a place where you could get little snacks any time of the day. The shows we also found severely lacking. It was the same crew putting on performances of often dancing and singing, and to put it bluntly they were fucking horrendous. The magician was enjoyable however.

Anyway by the time we reached Nouméa we were keen to be off the ship. We had already purchased tickets for the 'hop-on hop-off' bus with intentions to head to Lemon Bay again for some snorkeling. However after getting of and catching the cruise bus in to the town centre were told we had to catch that bus from the ship, so we hopped back on and went back and got on that bus, and it stopped at the town centre anyway, so we got annoyed by all the running around and lack of information in comparison to Royal Caribbean. So we arrived in Lemon Bay, it was still very early in the morning and the water was quite cold but we still went in and I had to slowly build my confidence up again (because of my fear of Sharks). Eventually it warmed up, and so did I and began feeling less stressed and anxious about Sharks and swam out to where the coral was last time we came (we didn't bring a camera with us, figuring we'd seen it all last time we came). However it was a bit different this time as there were sea snakes, that swam angrily up at me. With my face still beneath the water I screamed through my snorkel "SNAAAAKES!' and we began splashing our way to shore too terrified to go back over to the coral. Not knowing what to do for the rest of the day we swam in the water a little before deciding to go have some lunch at the place we got a delicious milkshake from last time. Which I didn't mention in my blog post, but it was a Hard Rock cafe I believe and I had a choc-coconut milkshake that was fantastic. However it was no longer there so we got a pizza from another shop instead and decided to just enjoy the day swimming at Lemon Bay. Swimming out to a floating wood platform to jump off. We eventually headed back in the afternoon hoping that we would do some good snorkeling at Lifou as we had payed to be able to enter the Marine Reserve 'Jinek Bay'.

The next morning bright and early we went and made our way to the island looking up and admiring at the church on top of a cliff. As soon as we arrived we began heading to Jinek Bay followed by a friend I dubbed 'Dustin' who followed us all the way there.

Dustin

We soon got to the bay and handed our form to show we had paid, and again I had to build some confidence up, this time fearful of Sea Snakes instead of Sharks. I soon relaxed and enjoyed the amazing beauty of the coral and marine life.

When it reached about 12:30 we hoped out for a coconut that they were selling right by us and decided we would head up to explore 'the cave' and along the way made friends with another random dog, this time and adorable Puppy.

Along our way to the caves many people walking back disappointed, informed us that you had to pay to be able to go to the cave, looking at how much money we had brought to the island, and we would have had enough if we hadn't of gotten the coconuts.

I decided I wanted to walk up anyway and found another dog sleeping outside the local church. I then wandered of the road out to a lookout with a cross overlooking our cruise ship.

As we were heading back to the road a guy came up through a bush track, asking where it went he said it took you down to the beach and you could follow it a long to where the dock was, as we were wanting to grab some lunch. On our way along I spotted a Turtle swimming in the water but it dove down. We rushed on our gear and ran in to find it but the wind was picking up and the surf began to get rocky. Upset my Wife thought I might not have seen one and we went back in, while talking I saw it again so we went back out and this time were able to see them and swim with them.

Feeling satisfied we went and got some food before swimming at the beach a little bit more and heading back to the ship.

The next morning we work up in Port Villa where we had a tour booked for the Cascade Waterfalls. We took in the sights and scenery on our bus trip there while the driver explained some of Vanuatu's history. We soon arrived at the area for Cascade Waterfall which we were told would be a short walk.

Along the way our guide kept stopping and talking about weird things like how we are all very special. It was like, every few seconds. Eventually we got to the falls and were able to go for a swim.

We weren't in there for too long, maybe 10 minutes when our guide told us all we''d go to the one you could jump off, we all moved and many people didn't jump, like my wife.

We were only here maybe 3 minutes before being moved on to one you could slide down. Again, not many people had a go.

We were here for maybe another 10 minutes before we began heading back. My Wife was actually quite upset at it cost $70 and she barely got to spend any time in, saying if she knew it was just that stuff she would have rather had stayed at the top swimming. While it was a great experience, it was really not enough time, and rather upsetting actually. But I guess we wouldn't have ever got to go otherwise.

When we got back down we got fresh fruit served which was really delicious, but we had to try and hide our annoyance behind polite smiles.

The next day we arrived at Mystery Island or Inyeug. We began by doing a walk around the entire island checking out the scenery and deciding where to dive.

We tried a few spots before finding a really good spot right off the beach.

While doing a walk around to find some lunch later in the day we found a guy who would let you get photos with his Iguanas for $5. Which as we both absolutely love lizards we instantly did.

The next day was our 5th and final stop. Isle of Pines. Once again we didn't bring any cameras as we thought we would be doing the same thing. However the weather was a bit dreary as it was lightly raining to we ended up paying and going on a tour around the island that ended up being really good as it was something we hadn't done before. We go to go around up high and look out of to and island we were told was Brush Island because it looked like a hair brush. We went to Maurice Bay to the War Memorial, a local church, the ruins of a penal colony in Ouro which were fun to explore the overgrown ruins, it was just a shame about all the graffiti. And we went to Oumagne Grotto or Cave of Queen Hortense, which was spectacular (you have to pay to enter) but it was great to explore and if I ever go back to Isle of Pines I'll do this again and take a torch as it was much too dark to walk to far into the cave, but it was a beautiful view that made me regret not bringing a camera, but I'm sure you can look it up on google. The whole tour took a little over 2 hours and by the time we were back at the main beach the weather was sunny and warm and so we spent the rest of the day swimming. Toward 2pm it began to rain and everyone was lining up waiting to get back on the ship, me and my Wife relaxed in the water while the rain poured around us.

We spent the rest of the time on the cruise ship attending trivia, going to coffee and cake trivia by Danny he reused half of the same questions, and although most the same people where there we won by getting more of the new questions right earning coffee and cake, telling Danny he reused the same questions he was shocked "Not on this cruise!" he said. "On others, but not this one!"
"Nah man," I said "You did like half of those on day 2."
He was shocked and couldn't believe it, saying they all just blend together now

I could talk about the rest of our days at sea, but it would honestly be a little negative and mostly me complaining. While I appreciate the staff and everyone efforts my Wife and I agreed that had it been our first cruise we would have never went of a cruise again. We also heard a lot of other people talking with similar complaints and almost daily heard the occurrence 'but a cruise is what you make of it'. So I guess everyone else tried to be positive too. Even our duty free wasn't delivered to our room and we had to be up at 6am to collect it the day of our departure.

All and all, we still had a great time, we really did it for the stops, having been disappointed by our stops (mainly Suva) last time. While this time we loved all 5 of them. We both agreed it'll be many years before we ever go on a cruise again and we'd both rather save and organise another overseas trip ourselves.

But now that I'm back home and back into the swing of things and it's winter, so I'm looking forward to doing some hiking and having some more local adventures!

If you have enjoyed this post, or my blog in general, please follow it, or like my page on facebook or follow me on Instagram.

Thanks for reading! - Steven




Extra tidbits! - So my Wife and I are taking part in 'The Ration Challenge' from the 17th of June until the 24th of June, in which we eat the same foods as a refugee for a week to raise funds and awareness. If you enjoyed my blog, are empathetic or charitable please donate to either my: https://my.rationchallenge.org.au/steven-hudson or my wife's https://my.rationchallenge.org.au/jennai-hudson sponsor pages. I will be filming some videos of us as well, and showing how we handle it so if you'd like to see those follow this page and I will post a detailed blog about how we found it when we complete the challenge. If you don't wish to donate you can also participate yourself: https://actforpeace.rationchallenge.org.au/