Sofala

For the New Year holiday, we visited the quaint "ghost town" of Sofala, in the Tablelands of New South Wales, northwest of Sydney.

Sofala is tiny, but full of charm.

Quite a noble interpretation of the kangaroo, don't you think?

 

"Bikies" relaxing at the local pub. 

The drive home was rainy and foggy, but it made the landscape eerily beautiful.

Pebbly Beach

Over the New Year holiday, we spent one afternoon at Pebbly Beach, about 270km south of Sydney. While snorkeling, we encountered three enormous sting rays. One gave us quite a fright when it began swimming towards us! Only later did we find out they're not normally aggressive... whew.

Cormorants cooling off.

A pair of Sooty Oystercatchers enjoying a coastal stroll.

We encountered dozens of dead Short-tailed Shearwaters, also known as mutton birds, all along the coast. Apparently they die in great numbers every year, usually from exhaustion, after migrating thousands of miles from the Arctic to Australia to breed.

A White-faced Heron scoping out supper.

Jervis Bay

The road to Booderee National Park in Jervis Bay, where we spent five nights camping over New Year's week. The park is jointly managed by the Australian government and the Wreck Bay Aboriginal community, who won back ownership of their native land in 1995.

Despite thousands of Aussies on holiday jamming the coastline, we managed to find a stretch of gorgeous, nearly deserted beach...

...where we could even out our tans!

Evening at Cape St. George Lighthouse, built in 1860.

The lighthouse has a rather morbid history, with not only dozens of shipwrecks occurring along the rocky coast of Jervis Bay, but also a series of eerily tragic events befalling the families of lighthouse keepers.

 

A wallaby enjoys supper near our Cave Beach camp site.

We enjoyed an excellent tour of the Booderee Botanic Gardens, where we learned some of the native Koori people's medicinal uses of native plants, such as treating jelly fish stings. 

Fan Palm

Fern fronds can be used to soothe insect bites.

Paperbark tree

Braidwood

We explored the coast of southern New South Wales for a week over New Year's. Here are some roos grazing at sunset in the coastal town of Kioloa, about 250km south of Sydney.

We spent one night in Braidwood, in the Southern Tablelands, on the road to Canberra. This charming and historic town dates to the goldrush era of the 1850s.

It reminded us of some of Northern California's goldrush towns.