All in one day

Gen was up before the birds in the morning to drive to Minnamurra headland for a majestic sunrise over the headland with sweeping views along the coastline and to the horizon bathed in gentle dawn light.

At  midday, we headed inland to Macquarie Pass, a humdinger of a mountain descent or climb just outside Albion Park. 

Macquarie Pass is one of the most famous roads in New South Wales, Australia. It’s an eight-kilometre-long section of the Illawarra Highway passing through Macquarie Pass National Park. Visibility is pretty limited, and there are two extremely tight hairpins. The pass is notorious for accidents.

This section of roadway is narrow and very steep, and contains a large number of hairpin bends, resulting in buses and trucks needing to reverse on some of the bends.

At the foot of the Pass is a picnic spot in a clearing in the rainforest with a delightful Cascades Walk leading to a gushing waterfall via a creek of large boulders, rushing waters, and calm pools laced with floating leaves. 

The forest made me think of the five senses, especially the taste of earthiness in the air and the visual delight of the first shoots of spring, interspersed with old wood highlights, like the wonderful coiled and twisted liana we saw beside the path. What a joy to live within half an hour of the sea and the forest.