Happy New Year

It was only 9 hours into 2015 when I woke up. Surprising for the fact that I went to bed not even 6 hours earlier. Probably this was probably due to the heat in the room that was already present at this early hour.

Obviously the rain had stopped during the night and the clouds had made way for the sun's intese rays again.

We had a very relaxed morning with a long breakfast before we drove along the waterfall way to the Rainforest national park.

It was a wonderful drive up the curvy mountain road road past a few waterfalls that were very impressive as it was raining all night.

The entrance to the Dorrigo National Park (just about 30km drive from Bellingen) was free but a voluntary donation was suggested.

First stop after the info centre was the a sky walk that led us out to enjoy a nice view over the rainforest.

We took a photo of all three of us with a permanently installed "selfie" stick to which I could attach my camera using the screw on bottom.

After this we started our nearly 8 km walk through the rainforest which led us past plenty of strange trees, plants, birds and other animals.

We saw strangler figs, wild turkeys, big iguanas, strange looking birds and a couple of waterfalls.
During the walk we met two or three groups of people from the hostel and towards the end the Rainforest got darker and darker.

This was not due to the forest getting thicker and thicker but more because the clouds started forming above the canopy again.

When we arrived back at the visitor centre it was nearly 5pm already, the sky was very dark and the ice cream stand that I had looked forward to for the last 7km was unfortunately closed already.
Not 3 minutes after we were inside the info centre to watch a film about the animals we just saw outside we heard the rain hammering down on the steal roof above our heads. It was getting hard understand the TV. Soon after the shop closed up and we had to run to our car. In fact, Karsten got the car and picked us up at the door.

We were very lucky to not have been still out there on the walk, there were not many people behind us but there were certainly some that got wet. Probably best to stay under the protective leaves of the rainforest.

While driving off the parking lot of the National Park the hard rain turned into hail (hail during Australian Summer).

It was possibly the hardest hail with the biggest hail balls I have ever seen.

We could barely see the road and searched for shelter under some tree or bush.

There we were, the three of us sitting in the car wet from the rain and waiting for the hail to stop.
It only took 15 min or so until we felt it was safe enough again to get out from under the tree and drive back to Bellingen.

We thought our canoe tour for later this evening would never take place after this kind of weather, but when we got back to the hostel one of the staff said it was still on.

After the walk we were pretty hungry and had to cook our pasta very quick to be finished before 7:15p, when we were suppose to meet up with the canoe guy.

German as we are we finished just on time but Daniel the owner of the Canoe experience place, who had already arrived was in no rush at all to get going.

We took it very easy drove to his place on the Bellingen River where we were to meet another couple that was going to go on the same sunset canoe trip.

We got into four canoes (each couple in a double and Dan and I in a single each).

Then we paddled up the river for a couple of minutes into a little cove where we hung out for a while. Dan was talking away with some details of the place and pointed out some animals we could spot along the banks.

On the way back we witnessed an amazing sunset behind the mountain range over the quite river. It was wonderful and unbelievable that not even 3 hours before only a couple of kilometers up the road we had a huge hailstorm.

After Lulu, Karsten and I spent some time being silly and fell behind the other two canoes we finally arrived back at the little beach behind Dan's house.

He told us to be quite and not to come up the stairs but stay down here with him because... because, the other guy just proposed to his girlfriend after this romantic canoe ride and they were up on the lawn in the sort of beach hut which had been prepared by Dan's wife with rose leaves and candles.

This, even I found very sweet and romantic... What a nice idea.

We had some sparkling wine at the little boat hut (as it was included in the offer), played catch with Dan's dog who loved to jump into the river to retrieve the ball and afterwards went up past the freshly engaged couple, gave our best wishes and Dan drove us home.

Pretty wrecked from the long day and not having much beer left from the night before we went to bed shortly after.