Australia

We had no definite plans for the day so spent the morning driving around beaches in the Port Stevens area. Shoal Bay was a lovely big stretch of white sand, so bright that I had to put my sunglasses on. The bay was sheltered so it looked good for swimming, and the water was a lovely fresh blue. The houses around the bay all had great views from their first floor sundecks - I could just imagine sitting on one of those enjoying a glass of wine.

Next we stopped briefly at Zenith Beach - it wasn’t mentioned in any guides we’d read but we saw the sign and decided to give it a go. After clambering over a steep dune we expected a spectacular scene, but it was small, a bit grassy and not as pretty as the other beaches so we moved on to Fingul Beach a few minutes away. This was busier and had bigger waves but kept the white sand and pretty houses that we’d seen at Shoal.

The clouds were coming in and it looked like it might rain, so we set off driving up the coast. It was further than we thought to get to Port Macquarie, and we didn’t arrive until later afternoon. By then we were starving as we’d missed lunch. I managed to stave Matt off McDonalds when we stopped at the service station, but when we arrived in town and saw pizza shops everywhere I crumbled and twenty minutes later we were driving down the road to the motorpark with a steaming hot pizza box on my lap.

After eating we felt revived enough to tackle a walk around the headland towards the beach. The walkway was edged with large boulders that had become rock art. People had painted whatever they wanted on the stones. Some just had names, messages or quotes on them but others were more artistic and had pictures painted in bright colours. We saw some immortalising family reunions in words and pictures, as well as memorials to people who had died. It was absorbing walking from rock to rock seeing how different people had chosen to decorate them, some showing more imagination than others.
Standing on the other side of the rocks were anglers trying to catch their dinner. The evening was warm and the walkway was full of people taking a stroll with prams and dogs. We walked right up to the point of the headland where we had a great view down over Town Beach and the surfers riding the high waves.

I was awed to see the body boarders in action. They were just young kids and they were all out as deep as the surfers. When a wave came they rode right along into it just like a surfer would, but laying on their belly. Sometimes they did 360 degree spins and tricks. It was nothing like our annual Cornish experience of body boarding. I could have watched them for hours, but the waves kept crashing into the rocks and sending showers of salt water over us so we decided to move on.

Matt had brought his new kite along with him so that he could try to find a park or empty beach, but unfortunately for him there was no wind whatsoever, so we strolled back along the walkway back to the site. On the way we saw a large pelican sitting on a pole pruning himself. It was huge and we thought back to a You’ve Been Framed clip where one tries to eat someone’s head and seems to swallow it right down to their shoulders before realising the person was a bit too big to eat.

As we approached our van the rain started to come down and it carried on all night.

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