AUS Day 8: Crystal Cascades

Straight to the pictures (wimp - read the blog first!)


Day began with a trip to the dock where we were fortunate enough to see the "grouper."  It was a very large fish!  You know, a funny thing happens when someone with an australian accent says the word "grouper;" it comes out "groper" - the difference is subtle, the meaning is entirely different...for example; "have you been down to the dock and seen the 'groper'?"  Hmm.  Well, we did have fun watching the huge fish and watching a couple of fisherman drop him a shrimp.  The fisherman don't like the grouper; apparently, he hangs around the dock area and is known to steal a "caught" fish right off the line.  Well, enough about the fish...on to other things.  Prior to making it to Crystal Cascades, we ended up at a park.  Julie, Nathan and I went on a walk while Dave and the other boys played some ball.

We spent this day walking around the Crystal Cascades area.  This is a "lesser known" area that is not really populated by tourists.  There were two parts to this day; the first part was a hike up to a waterfall.  This hike involved some scrambling and at one point, we didn't think we'd actually make it to the waterfall.  However, thanks to Dave who pushed on up the ridge (and my wife who followed), we eventually found our way up there.  It was beautiful and well worth it.  One especially cool thing was this very large tree that had fallen over the creek-bed (there's a picture of Julie exploring this fallen tree).  The boys also had fun playing around below the waterfall.

The second part of the day was a walk along the river.  There are a number of swimming holes and places to explore.  The boys had fun playing in the water, and we also saw some locals who were swimming and doing some clifjumping.  At the end of road was another waterfall.  All in all it was a beautiful day and a lot of fun.  Make sure you read the captions on some of the pictures for more.

See the pictures