Jibbon Head/Dharawal Aboriginal Engravings

It’s officially spring in Australia, and I decided to take advantage of the warm weather to check out Jibbon Beach in Bundeena, a small town that can only be accessed via ferry or by driving through the Royal National Park. I’ve taken the ferry before, so I decided to take the drive through the park down a winding two lane road until I reached the beach access point.

Trailhead

Jibbon Beach - the water is so calm and blue.

My ultimate destination was the Aboriginal rock engravings at the far end of Jibbon Beach. It was fairly deserted except for a couple of people on kayaks, and as I reached the end of the beach I came upon a grass clearing, where a group of about 20 people were gathered around a man who was burning incense and rhythmically hitting two sticks together; I decided my best course of action was to walk quickly past them avoiding all eye contact. I continued a few hundred meters more to Little Jibbon Beach. My guide had warned that many people treat this as a nude beach (which it isn’t), and advised me to call the police hotline if I came across anyone in their birthday suit. Fortunately the beach was deserted, and I was treated to views across Port Hacking to Cronulla.

Little Jibbon

I was disappointed to find a construction zone all around the engraving site. A lone tradesman was working on the viewing platform being constructed at the side, and he was blasting Top 40 radio from a boom box next to his lunch pail. It was interesting to see the engravings, estimated to be about 2000 years old, but the ambience was definitely compromised. 

Entrance to the engraving site

A whale I think?

Wallaby or kangaroo?

Fortunately I continued walking a little bit farther and the views up and down the coastline were spectacular.  

View of the coast

Byron Bay

Last week I took a couple of days off work so that we could take a little road trip up the coast of New South Wales to Byron Bay. It's about a 10 hour drive, and my poor little '98 Paseo handled it beautifully! One of the things on my agenda was The Big Banana in Coffs Harbour. Australia has a number of "Big Things", which are essentially tourist traps on the side of the road. This one happens to be a banana, but there is a Big Prawn, Big Guitar, etc. depending on the local economy. I got a picture with the banana and then we got out of there because there really wasn't much else to see.

The Big Banana

As we made the trip up the coast, the scenery changed gradually from sandstone rock formations and gum trees near Sydney, to sugarcane fields and banana plantations the closer we got to Queensland. Just when I thought we would never get there, we started the descent into Byron Bay and finally arrived at the Beachcomber, a small resort just a short walk out of town.

Byron is known for it's hippie culture (although I would say Portland would give it a run for it's money), and I saw plenty of white people with dreadlocks, people carrying guitars but not playing them, Birkenstocks, and tie dye. Fortunately, it also has amazing food and about 10 pubs within a few minutes walking distance to each other. We happened upon a fun place called "The Rails" that had live country/rockabilly music and had a few beers there on Saturday night.

The main reason I wanted to go to Byron Bay was to check out the lighthouse. This is situated on the easternmost point of the Australian mainland, and it was truly spectacular. We went on Sunday morning and nearly had the place to ourselves while everyone else nursed a hangover.

 Path up to the lighthouse

View of Byron Bay from the lighthouse. There is still a shipwreck in the bay from the 1920s that is now a popular surfing spot.

When it was time to head back home, we stopped overnight at Port Macquarie, a quiet town about halfway back down the coast to Sydney. I was able to try a couple of Australian beers there that were inspired by Northwest hops - this beer from Little Creatures brewery was about the closest I've tasted to a pale ale back in Seattle.

Yum!

The waterfront in Port Macquarie