March 29-31: Urunga

We departed Moreton Island on the 8:30 ferry (nearly missed thanks to a certain tortoise-paced barrista) and were in the car and on the road by 10.There are more well-known places to stay between Brisbane and Sydney, but I chose Urunga because 1) it was about halfway in between and small; and 2) I found an Airbnb on a macadamia nut farm that looked beautiful and promised lots of kangaroo sightings.

We stopped at Byron Bay along the way, another place we wish we could have stayed, especially since the Byron Bay Music Festival was going on. Luckily, the off-and-on rain we’d had all day stopped just long enough for us to walk around this place  that to me epitomizes a surf/beach town.

On our way from the beach to the car, we came upon Bay Kebabs, which is popular for good reason. Best (and biggest) kebab wrap ever.

It seems like each new place we go, we say, “This might be our favorite place,” and that was definitely true of Urunga. The cottage we stayed in was amazing – simple, but chic – and the setting couldn’t be beat. Just up the hill from us is a larger house, Hungry Head House, which is also rented out by our hostess, Hattie, and behind that is the macadamia nut orchard.

Pictures from Airbnb.com

Australia’s mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans) is the second tallest growing tree species in the world. The tallest specimen – nicknamed ‘Centurion’ – stands at 327 feet in Tasmania’s Arve Valley. It is the world’s tallest flowering plant and known hardwood tree.

Mick and I had a ball collecting nuts, but we discovered getting them out of their shells, intact, is no easy task. On one of our nut-collecting strolls, we ran into Hattie’s mother, Bronwen, who was visiting from Sydney for the weekend and I thoroughly enjoyed a long conversation with her about all kinds of things and her suggestions for places to stay along the Great Ocean Road between Adelaide and Melbourne.

Just past our place, Osprey Road turns into a dirt road that leads over some old railroad tracks and then drops you off at Schnapper Beach and Wenonah Head, a piece of land that juts out to form a kind of point. On either side of Wenonah head are beautiful, white sand beaches and more tire tracks (you can drive on beaches here) than people. Mick and I think this beach should be named “Squeaky Sand Beach” because of the sound made each time foot hits sand.

Singing Sand
Singing sand, also called whistling sand or barking sand, is sand that produces sound. The sound emission may be caused by wind passing over dunes or by walking on the sand. Certain conditions have to come together to create singing sand:

• The sand grains have to be round and between 0.1 and 0.5 mm in diameter.
• The sand has to contain silica.
• The sand needs to be at a certain humidity.There are various theories about the singing sand mechanism. It has been proposed that the sound frequency is controlled by the shear rate. Others have suggested that the frequency of vibration is related to the thickness of the dry surface layer of sand. The sound waves bounce back and forth between the surface of the dune and the surface of the moist layer, creating a resonance that increases the sound’s volume. The noise may be generated by friction between the grains or by the compression of air between them.

To the north of the beach, along Hungry Head Road, is the sleepy little town of Urunga and the much-photographed Urunga Boardwalk. The boardwalk starts at a riverside park right in town and takes you along a tidal lagoon area where the Kalang and Bellinger Rivers meet and join the South Pacific Ocean.

The views are beautiful, as is the boardwalk itself, but it’s hard to keep your eyes above the mud and shallow pools – teeming with crabs and fish – on either side of the boardwalk  and amongst the mangroves.

We managed to get to the grocery store during its shortened Easter hours and picked up stuff for dinner before heading back to the cottage. Just before the sun set, I took a short walk in hopes of seeing a kangaroo or two.

After the sun went down, I heard a kukaburra and rushed outside in an attempt to record it. While I was too late for a recording, I did find the almost-full moon peeking out between the eucalyptus and enjoyed a solitary I-can’t-believe-I’m here moment.