road trip down south

Sunshine23 and I went for a day drive down south today while we were recovering from our madness the night before. We decided we needed some peace and tranquility from Mother Nature hence we filled the day's itinerary with walks and drives along the coast and through National Parks. Our first stop was at Cronulla. We did a short walk southwards along the coast from Shelly Park. Mr SJ (nickname given by Sunshine23 - go ask her what it means) was our friendly local tour guide.



We came across this tree. I wonder if it symbolises anything at all.



We then had lunch at Nun's Pool. Sunshine23 had to recharge herself with some food before we continued our drive as she was still feeling a bit woozy from the night before.



Here you see us with our respective plates of food.



Mr SJ had the lamb fillets. I tried some and the meat was really tender. However, I wasn't ready for lamb at that time of day (it was 12noon) while recovering from a slight hangover.



I had the duck confit. It was good but I think I prefer the duck confit I tried some time ago at Wah Wah Lounge.



And Sunshine23 had the most delicious dish of us three - some zucchini patty thing. Not too heavy either, just nice for soothing hangovers.



After thanking Mr SJ for showing us around Cronulla and giving us a short educational session on cameras and photography, we headed down south to the Royal National Park. I enjoyed the drive through the park tremendously. We stopped to take a break from driving and to enjoy the breathtaking view off the cliff at Otford Lookout.



She wanted to jump off the cliff. I had to wake her from her still drunken stupor. Tsk tsk. I'd better not bring her to the Blue Mountains.



Continuing southwards along the Grand Pacific Drive, the air was most refreshing and we finally cleared our heads of any remnants of the alcohol consumed the night before. We did a pit stop at Scarborough Hotel, I think it was just before Austinmer if I'm not wrong.



This hotel has an alfresco dining area overlooking the cliff, it's amazing. It was packed with people when we arrived, mostly families with kids. We had to park some distance away as the hotel car park was full.



And I went on my usual phototaking mode. Sunshine23 took quite a number of shots of me photographing something during her entire stay here.



Once we'd regained our usual sober selves, our energetic bodies demanded we do something challenging. The moment we saw this yellow circle on the ground, a light bulb flashed above us and we just knew what we had to do. Here goes:






I look more like I was floating than jumping. It was great fun.

The further south we drove, the darker the skies got and it looked like we were driving straight into a hurricane when we were approaching Wollongong. We turned back towards Sydney when we arrived at Wollongong as lightning flashed and thunder roared. We had to give Kiama and Berry a miss.



Once back in Sydney, we headed straight to Kingsford for a quick and hassle free dinner at Golden Sydney Vietnamese Restaurant. We had the prawn and pork rice paper rolls with peanut sauce and their specialty spicy beef stew rice noodles.





Dinner was satisfying. We proceeded home to escape from the raging thunderstorm for the rest of the night.

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