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Published: June 16th 2013
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Our big East Coast road trip had finally started, and our first stop was Port Stephens! Back in Sydney we packed all our stuff into Sheila’s huge boot and then waited a little while for our landlord to arrive so that we could hand over the keys and he could hand over our deposit. We had a couple view our apartment the week before and they were happy to take over the lease straight away, so we assume that they moved in later on that day. The guy was running a little late, but eventually showed up at about 11:30am. He had a quick check over the apartment to make sure that we hadn’t broken anything and then happily handed over our deposit and thanked us for looking after the place.
We were on our way! We headed north over the Harbour Bridge for the last time, saying our final goodbyes to the city we’ve called home for the last 7 months. We then found out that quite a few people seemed to be heading north for the bank holiday weekend - this was on Saturday morning, and we stupidly didn’t really think about this until we were stuck in
a huge queue of traffic just north of the bridge. What should have been a 2 and a half hour trip ended up taking pretty much 4 hours, although once we were outside of the city suburbs the traffic eased off loads and it was actually a really pleasant drive! Most of our trip follows the Pacific Highway up the coast, so once out of Sydney and away from the traffic it was pretty much one road up to Port Stephens, again taking us through a few little villages and past lots of beautiful scenery – I did try to take some pictures but as the front windows don’t open these kind of sucked so no pics I’m afraid!
We had a stop along the way to get food, and ended up in Port Stephens by about 4pm, staying at Middle Rock Holiday Resort – a little caravan and camping park in the nearby national park and next to the beach. We parked up and checked in, where the nice lady on reception gave us a brief overview of the area with the assistance of a map, and handed us the key to our bungalow for the next 3
nights. We moved the car to the spot next to our little octagonal cabin and went inside – it was too cute! It was pretty small but perfectly formed, with one main big room containing a bed, a kitchen, a TV, a table/chairs and a spa bath (!!), and then a small room containing a toilet and a sink.
We made use of the spa bath a couple of times over the few days that we were there, although did almost flood the place with bubbles when we figured that shower gel should be fine to use as a substitute for bubble bath – poured a load of the stuff in then found ourselves under attack from a bubble invasion, trying desperately to burst them so that they didn’t go everywhere! Other than that occasion it was lovely and relaxing!
Our first full day in Port Stephens was the day that we had booked for our whale watching cruise, which we were pretty excited about. We made our way down to the marina fairly early and found a parking spot for the next few hours. There was a little market on which we had a walk around as
we were a bit early to board, and then found the dock from which we would be boarding our boat. We found a spot on the top deck that we thought would be perfect, on a bench next to the railing so no one could stand in front of us, so we would be guaranteed a good view of anything that we might see out on the water.
We set sail (taking a picture of the most random house boat that went past!) and made our way out past the nearby islands and out to the ocean, where we were then all given the task of whale watching duty! Over the next couple of hours we spotted about 8 or so whales altogether, some splashing around and slapping their fins on the water, others just coming up and blowing a spray into the air before diving back down and throwing their tails into the air. We got fairly close to most of them and got some great pictures, however the highlight was when a couple of humpback whales decided to come RIGHT up to the boat and surface right next to us! This is a pretty rare occurrence as
boats are not allowed to approach the whales by less than 100 meters, so we were all sat watching these two for a little while from a short distance when they then dived down and disappeared for a few minutes. All of a sudden they popped up right next to us; everyone was just in awe that these magnificent creatures were so close to us. The boat had to stop until they cleared us before we could continue, but it was truly a breath-taking experience to see them so close – you can see how huge they are in one of the pictures when they are underwater.
The rest of the cruise was spent sailing around the nearby islands, where we saw a few dolphins playing in the water, a sea lion sunbathing on a rock and some more sea lions floating around with their fins in the air! We really enjoyed the cruise and were very humbled to have seen all of these different animals playing in the wild.
The rest of the day was spent having a little walk around Port Stephens, and then we later had a stroll to the nearby ‘One Mile Beach’ next
to the holiday park. The following morning, we were up bright and early for sandboarding! We drove down to the edge of the massive dunes at Stockton Beach (they are 32km long – it’s literally like a desert there - complete with camels), where we were then picked up by a 4x4 and taken on a short bumpy trip across the sand! We arrived at the sandboarding spot, grabbed a couple of boards and proceeded up to the top, which was more difficult than it looks when every step you take ensures that your foot just slides back down so it pretty much takes triple the effort that it should!
We spent the next couple of hours climbing up and sliding down the dunes on our boards, which was good fun, and you get some good speed on those things – we actually got a pretty hilarious video of Emma zooming down the dunes before coming to an abrupt stop at the sand piled up at the bottom, getting flung forward and then face planting in the sand ha ha! Not sure if we will be able to upload it because of the huge video sizes on the camera,
but we’ll show anyone who wants to see when we are back!
After a fairly exhausting morning we spent the afternoon at the nearby beautiful Fingal Bay, where we enjoyed a bite to eat and an ice cream overlooking the water – bliss! We then returned to our cabin for a relaxing evening and packed up our stuff ready to move on the following morning.
Overall, we thought Port Stephens was a lovely little town – it really has that ‘seaside town’ feeling which we both love, and having the weather lovely and sunny everyday definitely helped make it look all the more stunning. Great first stop and it’s left us eager to see what awaits us in Coffs Harbour!
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