Arriving at Hawks Nest early enough to spend the afternoon on the beach was the best way to do it – after picking our tent pitch at Myall Lakes. We formed and abandoned most of our plans to climb and hike and snorkel and just played in the waves and soaked up some sun – good beach for body surfing and with a nice little barbecue gazebo, so we picked up beer and burgers and came back for dinner after a wander along the shoreline. This is another of those corners of the accessible southeast of Australia where you only have to look in the right direction to feel like your on a tropical island in the middle of nowhere. We had a few more beers in the tent and it was here that we discovered the decline in the breathability of K-Marts tents.
An attempt at some energy and activity saw us plod up the Gribber track, disturbing the large numbers of local monitor lizards before arriving at a tiny beach on the lake – some of us swam in the warm, calm water. It could barely get any more relaxed than this – only accessible by foot or by boat for the family that was already there. We ate a bit of lunch and hiked out the way we’d come and drove to Mungo Beach where the surf was up and wild and nobody could even get into the sea without immediately being chucked back out again! We retreated to Bennetts Beach (Hawks Nest) and had to haul out the noodles for dinner.
Another burst of activity for day 3 had some of us embark on a 200m swim out to Seal Rocks. I should have gone too, they saw sharks and turtles and octupus – although they were gone 2 hours! The beach was beautiful and even on my short swim, I’d seen a few fish, I just wish I’d persisted out to Seal Rocks myself. On our way back to Newcastle, we dropped into Nelson Bay (a mile or two across the bay from where we’d started but a decent drive on the PCH!) where they have a neck like the one on Bruny Island. There are actually a few necks here, one of which is all sand and probably only passable at low tide. There’s probably enough to explore in this relatively small area to last a week or two, but we had a flight booked to Indonesia the next day, so we had to say goodbye to Australia once again.
ducksoftheworld 