A relaxing weekend

We spend Saturday at the Wooli Wooli Resort and decide to take the opportunity to do something different than just driving or walking: we rent two bikes and ride along the river to the estuary. While Heidi's bike looks good and runs well, my rusty mountain bike can only shift two gears and has a terribly hard saddle. Still, it's fun to ride the 3 km to the end of the island, occasionally dipping our feet in the cold water of the river or sitting together on a bench.

Later in the afternoon, we take advantage of the campsite's offer to borrow a canoe for 2 hours and happily paddle on the Wooli Wooli River, while nearby rescue helicopters take water from the river for hours to extinguish fires. When a thunderstorm approaches and lightning flashes, we decide to go back to land as a precaution. Actually, it rains again afterwards.

On Sunday morning, it continues to rain while we leave the beautiful campsite and make another attempt to visit a national park. This time it should work out, and despite the partly unpaved and adventurous road, we arrive at Dorrigo National Park in the afternoon. The humid air hangs over the trees of the rainforest as we take a short walk. Tomorrow we will do the signposted hike through the park, but for today, this first glimpse is enough. However, it is fantastic: the setting sun and the mist create wonderful mood pictures, which I naturally try to capture. Various moist and fruity smells mix with a variety of bird songs, it's a delight. We are looking forward to seeing more tomorrow.

On the way back, we pass a field where the red soil, which is so typical for Australia, glows in the evening sun. This marks the end of a joyful and relaxing weekend, which finally brought some much-anticipated rain. Now we have two more weeks until we are back home. I say this without regret, we enjoy being here, but we know that when the time comes, we will also be happy to go home.