The Johnson Mob: Misty Creek Camping

After many months of planning - we finally managed our camping trip to Misty Creek. I met up with Pete in the morning, finished packing his 4by and trailor and then met Mum and Dad up at Dorrigo. We drove out through North Dorrigo, Bostobrick, Tyrringham and then turned off at Dundurrabin. The drive up to Misty Creek took about an hour from there - quite a steep and long climb on relatively rough dirt roads. We arrived and hurried to get Pete's tent up as we could hear thunder rumbling up and down the valley and it was clear that a storm was on it's way. We got the tent up - but not the fly - when the storm hit. We had to run around in the rain for a few minutes dragging tarps over the tent to protect it from the driving rain. Fortunately the rain didn't last too long and we were soon able to finish setting up. The sun came out for a while and then it rained again.

We decided to just ignore the rain - and were soon sitting around with a glass or two of bundy to celebrate.

After a drink, Pete and I went for a walk to check out the lookout and Lucifer's Thumb. The grasses and flowers were absolutely magnificent... we stopped often along the way to take photos... and made slow progress.

When we finally got to the lookout - the view literally took Pete's breath away - it is absolutely awesome!

I left Pete pondering a froggy swamp and continued up the track to Lucifer's Thumb. This would have to be one of my very favourite places to be - utterly wild, and awesomly beautiful. It is rather a lovely place to sit quietly and ponder the universe.

I stayed and watched the sun drop behind the mountains and then headed back down the track to find Pete. He was quite excited as he had heard the all of the New England Swamp Frog (a VERY endangered frog - there are thought to be fewer than 1000 of them left in the world). They have a very distinctive call and we were lucky enough to hear them. We continued back down the track, quite relieved when we got back to camp as it was dark.

We enjoyed a terrific fire and were entertained by the local nightlife... particularly a very cute bandicoot and an inquisitive possum.

We finally all crawled off to bed. This was the first time Pete had camped in a tent since his accident years ago..... so he was understandably excited and grinning from ear to ear.

The next day we set off on an epic drive - we had discovered that Peter's battery charger wasn't working and his wheelchair was unable to be charged - so we had to find civilization to plug it in to the power for a few hours. We decided to take the scenic route and drove through the mountains to Dalmorton - the ruins of a gold mining town from over a century ago. Pete found a lovely little 'renovator's delight' on our drive..... it might need a bit of work before anyone moves in though.

We continued on to Nymboida and stopped at the coaching house. The wonderful old building is a pub and accomodation and is now owned by Russell Crowe. They allowed us to plug Pete's chair in here so we stopped and had a few beers (well it was the least we could do). The pub was decorated with some 'interesting' signs...

We continued on, searching for a very isolated national parks camping ground which has just been opened. We got lost, but had a fun drive anyway (even needing to use Pete's winch to clear a fallen tree off the track). We eventually found the way to the camp-ground - but decided it was getting a bit late and we will save that trip for another visit. We went back to Nymboida, picked up Pete's chair and then started the long drive back up the mountain to Misty Creek.

We were pretty tired when we got back - though I did have the energy to play with the camera - learning how to slow down the shutter speed and take photos in extremely low light without using the flash... it was a bit of fun and I was pretty pleased with the results!