A very short day traveling today so we were in no hurry to leave. We eventually emerged from the van at 8.30 to enjoy pancakes, bacon and eggs cooked over the fire. After breakfast I followed the track leading in to the bush behind our campsite which ends at a lookout over the gorge. Way below was the nearly waterless Chandler River. The gorge here looks quite different to the section further along where the Wollomombi and Chandler Falls usually flow. A lot less sharp and rugged and a lot more treed.
We still hadn't started moving by 9.30 as we were enjoying sitting around the campfire, listening to all the bird calls and soaking up the sun. The next campsite eventually called to us and we hit the road again around 10.30. We only drove half an hour as we wanted to spend these couple of days re-energising after the madness that was Sydney. We set up camp at Native Dog Creek campground in Cathedral Rock National Park. The campgrounds in this area have been excellent. This one has a fireplace with BBQ plate and hooks for a billy as well as a picnic table at each site. After we had staked our claim, we drove in to the tiny town of Ebor to find some lunch (and a cache). The cafe was the only shop in town and doubled as the post office and the local meeting hall. There were small wooden boxes, tea cosies, second hand books, marmalades, knitted teddies and miscellaneous other granny craft things for sale as well. As we waited for lunch to be made, I snuck outside to find the cache. I was unsuccessful even though I apparently looked right at it as Emily found it later exactly where I had checked.
After lunch, Ebor Falls was our destination. We were not holding out much hope as the other two falls yesterday had been dry, so we were very excited to see a lovely cascade of water pouring over the rock from the lookout.
There are two lookouts at Ebor Falls. One to view both the lower and upper tier of the falls, and one at the upper tier. The lower tier was by far the more spectacular of the two so we were surprised to see the majority of people were at the upper tier. The volcanic nature of the area was very clear at the face of the falls where the rock was the classic organ pipe formation.
After returning to the campground, Peter and I went for a walk along a 1.3km circuit through the sclerophyll forest that starts at one end of the camping area and ends just near our site. The variety of low ground cover type bushes was surprising and we found a number of orchids along the way. A number of balancing boulders and large swathes of moss covered granite call this area home. The wattle was just coming out in bloom and there were little wild flowers here and there if you looked closely.
Back at camp we started a fire with the tiny number of off cuts we had managed to scavenge from the empty firewood pit provided by the ranger. We're not sure why this one was empty when the one last night had plenty. The fire lasted long enough to sit by as dinner was simmering away on the stove but not quite long enough to eat dinner in front of. Besides, the temperature had dropped and we retreated to the relative warmth of the van to eat.
Earlier in the day, on our way to Ebor Falls, we had driven past the Ebor cemetery and I had mentioned that there was a night cache there. Everyone had expressed a desire to go and find it after dinner and that's what we did. With jackets on ( the car thermometer told us it 9 degrees outside) and torches in hand we arrived at the cemetery to find a car parked there already and a man wandering about with a torch! We couldn't imagine what else he could have been doing there apart from caching so decided to begin our adventure. We walked across to the starting coordinates but couldn't see any fire tacks reflecting back so started to walk further in to the cemetery. The man with the torch came towards us and asked if we were looking for a geocache. He had been there for twenty minutes and had only found a small number of reflectors and was stuck. While Tim and I had a chat with him, the others headed across to the back fence where they thought they had seen something. It turns out they had, and the chase was on. From the right angle, a whole line of tacks showed up and we had the cache in hand less than a minute later. I didn't know whether to feel happy or sad for the guy. Apparently, it was his 960th find. We parted ways - we went back to try to find the start of the trail and he returned to his car. With the trail found, we also headed off, but pulled in to a rest stop a few kilometres up the road to find the only other cache in the area. We waited in the car as the man from the cemetery hunted here also and we felt we should give him a chance to find the cache. After about five minutes he had not found it so we decided to join him. We started at a large tree, which was the most likely spot, not even looking at the GPS. Emily bent down to use her torch in a hole and Sarah, who was with her, calls out, there it is! The poor guy. They'd been out of the car all of ten seconds. Emily offered for him to sign the log first, which he did, and then he made a very quick exit. I definitely felt sorry for him this time.
With the kids still excited on our return to camp, Peter took each of them for a walk along the circuit. Hopefully, they'll sleep long and well after that. Tomorrow we go to Glen Innes.
