Thursday, May 17, 2012

Day 93, A Sunrise, the Lighthouse, Mount Kiera

Today was jam-packed with a big agenda: Go see the sunrise, Go the other side of the lighthouse, go to the beach, climb Mount Kiera, and go to Retronight at Hotel Illawarra.
The day started off beautifully.  Bright sun, some cool colors. Watched the whole day begin in the whole wide world.

Just a close up of the different colors and stuff.

This is probably the most intriguing part of the walk to the lighthouse.  This particular morning the tide was so shallow that we could walk across it without taking our shoes off.  Usually, there is some flow of water, sometimes small, sometimes big, but today the tide had receded so much, it was the first time I had ever walked across without having to take my shoes off.

When Wollongong was first established, these cannons were put in place to guard the city from invasion of the French.  World War 1 the Germans, World War 2 they were out of date to defend the coast from Japan.  Japan never made it that far south luckily anyway.

Never gets old looking at this coast line.  No matter where you look at it from, there is always a new angle or new way to experience the view.

At the Wollongong Harbor, Ally made some friends.  If you blow up the picture, you'll see how many exactly.  The black bird, top left, is sunning itself after diving for some morning breakfast. Pretty big Pelican she's standing across from as well. hahaha

Well, I couldn't figure out the tides because as you saw earlier it was really shallow where we walked across and yet when we got to the lighthouse the waves were crashing over the sides where it is usually a bit calmer and drier.

Ally loved this spot, she was checking out every tidal pool for any animals, shells, money, you name it!

We found this rock by the edge where we could see the waves hit the sides of the rocky coastline.  It was awesome.  This was before a wave would hit.

And this is after! Take a look at the video below.
How awesome it that.

What isn't awesome is, after 10 minutes of not getting hit by any of the waves, guess what happened.  The spot we thought we were safe from getting hit from, got hit.  We got soaked through and through by one of these massive waves.

Although, the blotchy clothes look might be a trendy new fashion statement.
We went back and changed into our bathing suits and gathered up the crew and went to the beach.  We swam out to a sand bar and were catching waves for a good forty five minutes.  They were a lot of fun. 

We started our climb to the top of Mount Kiera after lunch. This was the first good view we got from our ascent.

Some random statue that we passed on the way up.  Ally struck a graceful pose!

This was look out number 2.  It was a little higher up and the view of the city was beautiful.

the higher  up we went, the less markings were on the trail  It was kind of a guessing game trying to get to the top.

Ally is pointing to where we had to climb to get to the final look out point.  It doesn't really look like it, but it was steep.  What is more annoying is, we didn't make it to the true lookout point because we figured we had went the wrong way but apparently we were only like 40 yards from the top but because it was getting dark we decided to turn back. 

There she is...Mount Kiera! 
Anyway, we went back to the university where the trail starts, grabbed a drink and relaxed after a day of activities.  We got back to campus east, ate some dinner got ready for a night out on the town and went to Retronight.  We danced, I watched Rylan lose money to a slot machine, and overall had a good night as we walked back to campus east eating McDonalds!

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