Kiama Believer

Day: 381

Towns / Cities Visited: 287

Countries Visited: 31

Steps Taken Today: 20,964

Steps Taken Around the World: 5,908,644

Morning broke, and we were woken, for the third time, by the not so soothing sounds of construction. Luckily, it was to be the last time we would have to, and thus we packed up out tent and rather gleefully bid farewell to the poorly designed caravan park with its open-air kitchen, tiny fridge, aggressive nesting plovers, and all too distant amenities. Sometimes it is sad to say goodbye, and sometimes you can leave without a single glance back. I’ll let you guess which of those we did that morning.

Taking the road north, we drove until we reached Kiama, the surprisingly large town we would be calling home, if only for a night. Starting small on the attraction list, we pulled up and wandered over to the Little Blowhole. As you would expect, it was a blowhole, although it was anything but small except for in the size of the hole itself. In fact, the minimal aperture was the exact reason that the spurt of water being blasted through it by the incoming waves gained so much height. Much like adding a few Mentos to a bottle of Coke, the sea forced its spray sky-high, the whoosh accompanying it sounding akin to the breeching of a whale. We stood watching it for a long while, just two people finding amusement in the bizarre ways of nature.

Impressed with our first foray, we moved on to another further into town, this one simply known as Kiama Blowhole. What the first lacked in hole size, the second over-compensated, but the result was a little lacklustre. Sure, the amount of water forced through it was impressive, but without the bottleneck of its southern sibling, it was unable to match it for height. Still, that’s not to say we didn’t enjoy the spectacle all the same.

Luckily, if we were looking for lofty sights, we didn’t need to look much further than the historic lighthouse perched beside the blowhole. Built in the 1880s, I did look up at it and wonder whether the original lighthouse keepers used to look out and watch the spurting…