Land of Kangaroo - New South Wales (Part 3)

Day 5 : Penrith - Canberra

We woke up after a very comfortable 9 hours sleep. I just realized that during this trip, our sleeping time was longer than we we normally have, 9-10 hours average. Yaikksss...that was so unproductive. But nothing much we could do since it was winter and the days got dark early. We had instant cup noodle, bread and peanut butter, and our favorite drinks for breakfast. We checked-out  around 9 am and our first destination was The Rock lookout point. It was quite far from Penrith town and we passed through a countryside. There were no other tourists there when we arrived. This lookout was an isolated place, being part of the Blue Mountain region. The view from the lookout was simple amazing though the sky was covered with clouds, permitting less sunlight. It was possible to hike from this point to Echo Point in Katoomba, which was 5 kms (or something like that) away.But the effect was dramatic where the Napean River flowing through the thousands of trees appeared golden. There was no public facilities here.

On our way out from the lookout point, we a wild grey kangaroo within the fenced bushes. It was huge. We stared at it, and it stared back at us. Haha...and off he hoped away. We was talking about encountering wild kangaroo, and we did. And there were more wild kangaroos a few minutes from the first sighting. I was lucky enough to have the 18-200 mm Nikon lens so I managed to get several pictures of the wild kangaroo colony from a distant. I couldn't stop admiring kangaroos and I just couldn't understand why.

Lovely flower with lovely scent just outside of our motel room

Napean River viewed from The Rock lookout

Kangaroos in the wild, staring at an Asian

We proceeded to Canberra passing through Hume highway first, exited Hume highway and passed through Federal highway towards Canberra. We made a few stops to ensure our dearly driver had enough rest so that he could focus on the driving. At one of the stops, which I couldn't recall the name, flocks of wild colourful birds kept my camera busy. It was tough because it was started to rain, and the birds were very sensitive to my movement. They flew away when I tried to approach them stealthily. Got a few pictures of the birds finally. 

The driving was quite worrying because cross winds appeared out of nowhere and we could feel the impact. In this scenario, it was wise to drive at a reasonable speed, especially for high centre of gravity vehicles with small tires. Or else accidents would occur and we didn't want that to happen. Driving at a normal pace good enough because we could enjoy the breathtaking views along the way and enabled us to get nice photos too. The scenery along our way to Canberra was beautiful. We made a stop at Lake George where we saw the windmills which were really far away. Having a high-range lens would definitely help though the cloudy day made the photography a little challenging.  

A simple, yet stunning view along the highway

It looks summer, but it's winter, really.

I love this view

Beautiful bird

Black cow hanging out at the field

Fresian cows grazing in the field

We arrived Canberra at 3 pm, so the first thing we did was finding a caravan park. We didn't have to trouble ourselves to find one because the there were a lot of caravan parks listed in it. We chose Carotel Motel & Caravan Park which is a few kilometers away fro Canberra CBD. This caravan park was a decent and it has sufficient facilities. After checking-in, we went to the city center just to have a look around because we didn't want to let go of the remaining time of the day doing nothing.

So we went to Canberra Center, a shopping mall in Canberra. I wasn't sure if it is the only shopping mall in Canberra because we couldn't see any other shopping mall, unless we missed them. Canberra Center was not that big but there many high-end apparels outlet. Well, those were obviously beyond my interest. There was a souvenir shop and spent more time there surveying and thinking on what to buy. It was impressive to see products made of Eucalyptus leaves. The leaves were coated with some metal elements that they harden and turned various products such as brooches, pendants, earrings and other. So creative!!.
There were also colourful accessories which made of oxides of metals. This was really a chemistry stuff and whoever hates chemistry, think again!! You can make money as long as you know your chemistry well, and creative enough to manipulate  your knowledge.

As for dinner, we had various Italian pastas, cheese penne, mushroom arrabiatta etc. Around 7, we returned to the caravan park. It was much colder in Canberra than in Sydney or Katoomba so we slept with 2-3 layers of pants and shirts.

Day 6 : Canberra

Another delightful day and our morning was very splendid to see birds of different colours nibbled on the grass beds near our motorhome. We prepared our breakfast on the caravan ground and it was very cold. I couldn't do things without gloves but doing the cooking with the gloves on was not convenient either. We had simple sunny side-up eggs, bread, cheese and peanut butter.

A galah. It's lovely, and it's pink too. *wink*wink*

Our plan for this day was to spend time around Canberra. We spent time at the Australia War Memorial. This memorial was built to reminisce the contribution of the fallen and alive Australians, as well as New Zealanders, involved in the WW1 and WW2. At first I thought this would be boring because wars were just not my thing. But in the end, I really enjoyed gaining some information on the history and the enlightening parts of the wars. I've just knew that there was no wars in Australia & New Zealand, but the military forces went out of the country to protect their countries from wars. It seemed that there were so many things on the history that I was totally sucked with, but good enough that I managed to replenish my knowledge in history, at least a little bit of it.

Australian War Memorial

A facade in the mausoleum 

The aircraft used by Australian air-force against the Germans in WW1

When we were done with the War Memorial, we took some time taking pictures within the memorial compound. It was sunny and cloudless sky so it was a waste to let the day went off just like that. The Parliament House could be seen from the memorial which was the most prominent landmark of Canberra.

Next, we visited Australia National Museum. There was no entry fee but one need to pay for certain exhibition held in the museum. It was quite interesting to get to know the trackback of old and modern Australia. But I couldn't spend another hour of walking slowly and observing various items displayed there. So we went off and tried to visit other attractions in Canberra. However, many attractions were under renovation. We kept on driving around the city until we say a lake with black swans here and there. We stopped, and got to know these beautiful creatures.

The Parliament House viewed from the Australia War Memorial

Black Swan at Lake Griffin

Before we returned to the caravan park, we went to the Canberra Center again for dinner. But it seemed that the operating hours was almost over and all food outlets were closed. So me had french fries and tea only since we were not hungry at all.

Day 7 : Cooma - Snowy Mountain

We planned to visit Snowy Mountain today to experience the snow. But had a late start today and that meant we wouldn't have much time at Snowy Mountain. Sometimes it was difficult to travel when one of the travel members did not care to stick on time and simply delaying this and that. Some things could be done while we were on the road. That saved a lot of time. Ok, enough with the nagging.

We left Canberra for Snowy Mountain at 10.30 am. The initial plan was to leave at 9. And we thought it was near to get the mountain but it took 2 hours or so to get there. Actually, we did another mistake by stopping for more than required time at a winter sports outlet just to get  pair of marked-down price thermal glove. And then, we stopped by at a TIC at Cooma town to get some useful information on Snowy Mountains.After getting all the information we required, we did another time wasting activity which was taking uninteresting pictures in Cooma.

Sheeps and sheeps and hills. 

Another nice view

Cooma welcoming us

My quite angry face and pose.Haha

But thank God the landscapes heading to Snowy Mountains were beautiful enough to make each and every of us felt calmer. We passed through Jindabyne town where the lake made the town pretty interesting and scenic. After Jindabyne, we went straight to Perisher Ski Tube where to get to the ski point, we need to ride on a electric train, or tube. Most of the people there went to Perisher and Blue Cow for skiing but we were the only without our ski equipment. We got onto the 3 pm tube and straight to Blue Cow which was higher than Perisher Valley. The return ticket of the tube costed AUD52 per adult and that was not something cool. At least we knew what the expect the next time we went travelling to winter destinations; bags and bags of money. Yaikkssssss!! We thought we could have nice time for photography here but it seemed that it was foggy and sun less. I didn't get good pictures here because I couldn't bare the coldness and that affected my control over my camera. I think if anyone wishes to do photography in a snowy area, it is wise to go to places where it is meant for photography, not a small place meant for skiing. There were lookouts as shown by the signs but walking in foggy and snow, wasn't a good idea for us. 

In Blue Cow ski point

If only we have that much money to go skiing.

Around 4.30 pm, we took the tube down to the main station and headed back to Canberra. It was almost dark. We stopped at Jindabyne for fuel and stopped at Cooma for dinner (at McDonalds). Around 9 pm, we arrived Canberra and time to zzzzzzzzzz!!!