This afternoon Shao-Ping, myself and our two guests from Taiwan, Claire and Kelly, went for a drive south through the Illawarra, past my school at Albion Park and then up Macquarie Pass to the top of the Illawarra Escarpment. A new tourist attraction opened on the escarpment two weeks ago ~ The Illawarra Fly.
What is the Illawarra Fly you ask? A large insect of the order Diptera with dimensions not unlike the Big Banana at Coffs Harbour? Perhaps a massive opened zipper comparable in size to the Big Pineapple at Nambour? Well, thank goodness, the Illawarra Fly is not a kitsch piece of titanic tourist trash. It is a tree-top walk along the edge of the Illawarra escarpment.
We arrived at the ‘fly‘, bought our tickets and made our way through the temperate rainforest to the structure. It is quite high and I am not one for heights actually. Not sure why. I climbed Uluru when I was 14 and I have even been on two tandem skydives from 4000 metres but some heights still get to me. I ventured out on to the structure and began taking photographs. I will admit that I did not climb the tower. Perhaps next time.
The views north and east across the Illawarra escarpment are sensational. You can see all of the peaks conquered by my alter ego Larry as a member of the Adventurers’ Club. Mount Kembla, Mount Keira and Broker’s Nose are all there. The Illawarra looks like a nice place to live and work, eh? I car-pool with Diamond and Horse from the Adventurers’ Club.
Looking north towards Wollongong in the distance and the Illawarra Escarpment
Beneath us lay Albion Park and the Yellow Rock region. Due east is Shellharbour. The Pacific Ocean spreads out along the eastern horizon. The weather was perfect for the adventure.
Yellow Rock and Albion Park countryside
Following the tree top walk we made our way back through the forest and I took a few more photographs. I think I took 71 in all. I should create a new gallery.
A massive tree ~ I do not know the species…
Shao Ping, Claire and Kelly
After that we drove back down the mountain and through the dairy farms. Claire and Kelly jumped at the opportunity to photographs the cows in the late afternoon light.
Contented cows. They’re not thinking about joining a Diigo group.
March 30th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
You’ve totally crack me up. I should also say the photos are really fantastic and it looks like you’ve had an excellent day. Looks like I’m with the cows
. And I think all this talk of diigo has made me GONE insane (that’s my anti spam word)
March 30th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
John -
Thanks for providing me a window into countries and scenery that I may never have the opportunity to see in *real life*. The fly looks just amazing – and scary! I have issues with heights as well, but this looks like it would be worth a little trembling to get to try it out. As for the cows, well, I have those right out my window
Kate
March 30th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
I should state that at least that cows aren’t being bombard with emails at the moment either.
March 30th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Thanks Sue and Kate. We did have a great day. We are fortunate to live so close to such great scenery. Claire and Kelly had a great time. They do not get to see too much scenery as they are on a working holiday here.
Take care and have a great week! Cheers, John.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
[...] I was seemingly in a drunken web 2.0 haze I signed up for Diigo despite my digs here, here and here (scroll down) I will have to thoroughly explore Diigo in order to derive the greatest benefit from [...]
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:08 pm
[...] they still love in a few weeks or moved onto the next best thing (I’m with the cows — read the last sentence at the bottom of the post). However boredom won on Saturday night made me decide to try Diigo [...]