Free cakes at Forster keys

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Left Stockton and Newcastle heading North, towards Port Macquerie, at least I thought we were heading North but in fact I took us back to Nobby’s Head in Newcastle, I did tell Shenton my map reading skills left a lot to be desired. Anyway after the short detour we were on the road again. WE took the main highway until we saw a place called Tea Gardens. We thought this sounded like a good place to stop for lunch. Had some Barramundi by the river and the locals advised us to take the scenic route through the national park rather than taking the highway as this was much more picturesque.
After driving over the whistling bridge (so called because of the noise it makes when the wind blows) we were pretty soon into the national park. This could not be any more different to the highway we were just on and certainly was a good suggestion. After a short drive through the park we arrived at little river which could only have been 50 meters across and waited a few minutes for the car ferry to come and take us on the massive journey!
We carried on the coastal route travelling by the lakes here the scenery really is spectacular and the lakes are huge. We had to stop at the one called Smiths Lake, where we had a coffee and Shenton would have taken out one of the catamarans except there was no wind so instead we drove on to find somewhere to camp as there didn’t seem anywhere around the lakes.

We were told to go to a place called the ruins which we found but I didn’t like the look of and also we had no fresh food or bread, or more importantly alcohol so instead we drove on to find provisions at the next town called Forster. We stopped before the main town at some little shops and the bloke at the bakery was so nice that Shenton now has to revise his saying “Planets getting warmer, but the people are getting colder.” due to the fact that not only did he tell us where we could camp for free round the corner by a lake, where there were toilets that were “clean as a whistle” and “no one would bother us” he also gave us some free cakes for our trip.

The place was great and we settled down to make some dinner, then the only problem started at dusk when the killer mosquitoes arrived, they bit me through my trouser s and two pairs of socks! It seems the price for camping was not cash but blood!

We woke up to a chorus of birds chirping and fish jumping in the lake. Parrots apparently mate for life but I think the ones around there are heading for divorce the way they were screaming at each other. Shenton decided he would go for a swim/bath in the lake, when he got out he said it tasted salty, we realised it wasn’t a lake but a creek fed by the ocean and looking at the board listing the types of fish within the creek we saw there were sharks in it!

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Photos

Camp Forster
watch out for those mosquitos

Alarm call
Where the wife, I want a DIVORCE!

Shark bait
Shentons morning bath