Chasing Waterfalls

I love the Waterfall Way. It is one of my favourite drives, so I had planned our route carefully to include it.

We had amassed enough snacky foods that we didn't need to actually prepare a picnic lunch, and when we arrived at Wollomombi Falls, there was no competition for the big picnic shed.  We hoed into our Granite Belt goodies under the watchful eye of a lone magpie, that regularly made little chirping noises like my cat. 'Feed me please.' Not the usual magpie call.

Then down to the falls lookout. They were flowing, but only a wee bit. Just once in my life, I would love to seen them in flood.  The gorge is still spectacular though, and I would never drive past without stopping for a look.  Is Wollomombi the tallest waterfall in Australia? It used to be an ongoing battle with Wallaman Falls in north Queensland, but I see that Tin Mine Falls in the Snowy Mountains has now entered the fray. 

Moving along, we now began to shed our warm clothes and started to watch the fuel gauge with interest.  I had planned to fill up in Armidale, but there was no garage on the road out and prices there were high.  I figured I had enough in the tank to get us to Dorrigo.  We arrived at Ebor Falls, where there was a lot more water to look at: different watershed, different river flow.  As we left the lower falls carpark, the fuel light came on.  This can be deceptive, as sometimes if you park facing downhill, it comes on early.  Even so, there is usually over 10 litres left in the tank at this point.  We stopped at the upper falls, where lichen is growing on everything, and the light still didn't go out, so I lost my nerve and stopped at the incredibly expensive Ebor servo. 15 litres would get us to the coast, I figured.

On through the rolling green fields and mountain vistas to Dorrigo, where Jo wanted to show us the antique shop and Jan wanted to show us the trains. I wanted to show them Dangar Falls.  The antique shop is huge, and 'never open', said Jo, exaggerating only slightly.  The shop is huge and absolutely crammed with stuff.  Next time I go to Dorrigo, it will definitely be on a Thursday. Next stop, Dangar Falls. They are lovely and on the outskirts of town.  Plenty of water there too.

Finally the trains.  There is a citizen of Dorrigo who loves trains. So he collects them. And  there they sit in a field on the north-western edge of town. Photos really don't do the collection justice.  You drive down the road to a dead end, and his engines, carriages and other railway goodies are on three sides of you. A lot of the carriages are decaying quite badly but the locos seem to be in pretty good nick.  As Molly would say, 'do yourself a favour' and go and see them yourself.

We had one more op shop visit planned for the day, the Life House in Bellingen, and we knew we would be cutting it fine.  We had not progressed far down the range, when we encountered a red light and a sign saying 'diesel spill on road'.  Well, we sat, and sat and sat. Finally it was our turn to move, and we passed what looked like a landslide, being worked upon feverishly.   Maybe they didn't have a 'landslide ahead' sign. Sadly, that was it for the Bellingen op shop.  There are two more small waterfalls spilling down beside the road on the way down, but there was no way to stop to photograph them in the traffic line-up in which we were sandwiched. 

We stopped in Bellingen for a while anyway, and checked out the beautiful (expensive) Commercial Emporium and the other lovely buildings in the main street.  The last section of the Waterfall Way was along the green Bellinger River flats, and then we headed for the sea and Sawtell.