Easter Weekend 2011

Image by Bidgee via Flickr

Hi All,

HAPPY EASTER!

Just wanted to share our Easter long weekend with you all.

Don't mean to brag and all but Wow! What a fantastic trip we had down to Griffith NSW and the Murrumbidgee River.

We left Thursday night staying with Stan in Forbes overnight so we only had just over a three hour drive on Friday.



The campgrounds were in the Willbriggie State Forest 35 klm south of Griffith and just a few kilometres west of the quaint little town of Darlington Point.

The Punt Hotel, Darlington Point NSW

 James walks the dogs at Darlington Point

The entrance to the park was near the bridge to the town beside a giant sawmill.

James on the town side of the bridge


Camping on the banks of the Murrumbidgee river is something I highly recommend to camping enthusiasts and I will post a link on campsites australia. We found a beautiful grassy site right on the river about 4 klm from town.

I was a little nervous at first because I mean we were RIGHT on the edge and there was about a two metre drop down to the water. We kept the dogs on leads almost the entire time except when they went to bed inside the camper.

View of the Murrumbidgee River from our campsite.

360 degree view from our camp

Our campfire

The weather was perfect, with clear blue skies and lots of sunshine. We spent a lot of time walking along the track that wound through the beautiful forest beside the river.

We found lots of things to see:

Such as a native bee hive, just look at all that delicious honeycomb, if only I could have found a way to take a sample without being attacked!

One of the more unusual things we came across quite by accident is a Geocache stuck in the mud beside the track. It must have been dislodged during the floods earlier this year.

Geocache tin

 

When we opened the tin, we found it was filled with water and everything inside was slimy and wet, including the entry log.

We cleaned everything up, carefully separated and dried out the log pages and then put everything back inside wrapped in plastic plus we added clean pages for the log and a pencil and sharpener. We then used our GPS to find its original location and then put it close by in a safe and secure spot.

I have only recently found out about geocaching through following someone's travel blog. Geocaching is a very popular worldwide activity, it's a treasure hunt in essence. From what I know, you go online to the geocache site find an area where you want to go geocaching, note the GPS location and then once you've located a geocache, you sign the log inside the geocache, then later you go online and make a log of your find online. You can also swap items inside the geocache with other items if you wish.

As beautiful as the forest was with its abundance of giant graceful gum trees:

I couldn't believe the number of giant spiders there were in the forest, just lucky for us that their webs were over 2 metres above the ground, I definitely wouldn't want to wear one of them on my face while out walking!!! If you're a bit squeamish, then don't look at the next photo.....

One of dozens of spiders we saw in the forest

Sunrise over the river.

During the weekend we went on a couple of the marked forest drives, below is a short video of one of the tracks....

 The video is the drive back to our campsite after a forest drive.

We spent a day sightseeing in and around the attractive cosmopolitan city of Griffith surrounded by numerous fruit orchards, wineries, vegetable and agricultural farms.

Driving along the long picturesque main street.

One of the many beautiful gardens, this one stretches out beside one of several canals.

View over Griffith from Scenic Lookout

Below the Dudley de Chair Lookout in the hills behind Griffith is the intriguing Hermit Caves. The caves were once home to Valerio Recitti, an Italian immigrant who came to Australia in 1916 at the age of 17. After drifting from one job to another, being robbed and getting into some trouble he ended up in Griffith. 

He then chose to live the life as a hermit in the shallow caves during the 1920s. He built walls to make rooms and he built terraced gardens to grow fruit and vegetables. He created massive stone galleries and pathways, and floral painted rock walls. 

One day he was found injured after a fall, by a passing swagman and was taken to hospital to recover. He soon became a celebrity after people found out about his marvellous work. He lived in the caves until he was interned during WW2. He eventually returned to Italy in 1952 after his health began to fail, and died six months later.

View from Hermit Caves overlooking Griffith

Steps down to the Hermit Caves

 

Entrance to the kitchen and other rooms.

 Looking inside one of the rooms

The decoration on the walls

Even with having 5 days off, the long weekend always seems to go by very quickly. We were very sad to leave as we packed up camp on Tuesday morning and headed home. We drove home via Ariah Park and Grenfell, a road we hadn't been on before so that was something new. 

I hope you all had a great Easter too!

Until next time, take care

Marieanne.