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Zeinth beach.
Remind anyone of a tropical island?? what a place to have just had lunch hey!The drive up from the Blue Mountains to Port Stevens turned out to be a lovely scenic drive that went really quickly due to all the beautiful harbors and cool looking mountains and stuff we pasted on the way up. We arrived at a new campsite just around from Nelson bay, we were luckier this time not only was it warmer here but we also had use of a camp kitchen and there was even a TV in there to watch once the sun went down, yippee!
Port Stevens is a huge natural harbor which is also the self proclaimed ‘dolphin capital of Australia’ and also boasts having the largest moving sand dunes in the southern hemisphere! What a lot of books don’t mentions that much is that we were surrounded by 26 golden beaches and this lovely clear blue sea and in land the whole area is covered in small national parks which have loads of koalas and kangaroos!. It had been and still is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It is definitely the kind of place that I would love to retire to when I get old.
On the first day Emily and
Now thats what I call a good view!
Inside of this bay are more than 160 dolphins apparently I just took a walk around Nelson bay which is the main town centre in Port Stevens and is surprisingly small, we then walked around the harbor and some of the beaches around this area. We drove to another beach for lunch which overlooked this amazing sand bar that attached its self to an island just off the coast, as we sat here looking out for whales and dolphins and taking in the view both of us said how much this reminded us of the islands around the south of Thailand.
Not only is this one of the most beautiful place I have ever been too but I cant get over the amount of different wild life here, there are parrots flying around like we get pigeons in England, there are whales migrating north to warmers waters and dolphins in the harbor and as you drive around were are camp site is there are koalas sleeping in the trees and kangaroos jumping out in front of you while you’re traveling down the road. It is just the most amazing place, Emily and I kept wondering the whole time what creature would jump out on us next!
Having bought the car
it was great as it allowed us to drive to all these fabulous beaches that were completely deserted! One of the evenings we just sat on the beach as the sun went down in front of this deep red sky while in the sea a couple of dolphins were playing about and jumping out of the water it felt so magical.
We had booked a whales watching trip the 2nd day we were there, I found it amusing as this was the first boat trip I have been on since Asia and it was a refreshing change to find the boat clean and safe but best of all the captain introduced himself and explained what he hoped to do and see. I am so used to Asia where you get thrown on a boat and no one has an idea what is going on or what there meant to be looking out for!!
The boat we went out on was only a small one as there was on about 30 people on board as is was the start of the whale season. As soon as we exited the harbor and into the ocean it got pretty windy so they
The sand dunes
Just before we drive down a near vertical slope! had to put the stabilizer down to stop the boat from rocking to heavy and giving people sea sickness.
Within about 20-30 mins the captain shouted and the turned the boat northwards as he had spotted a group of dolphins in the distance, as we approached them they all saw the boat and swam towards it. It kept forward momentum and the dolphins swam on the bow wave of the boat while all of us leant over the bow and looked down on them, they could not have been more than 3-4 feet away from me while the jumped, swam and played, it was incredible to see them so close.
As I had mentioned earlier there was quite a wind so there where some large waves coming towards us and when I looked up at one point I seen a wave with about 10 dolphins swim on the crest of it, I just couldn’t get my camera out in time unfortunately as it would have been the most amazing picture seeing 10 dolphins jumping out of the on coming wave.
The whale watching was due to last around 3 hours and I was determined that I would stand outside on
the boat and scan the seas until I found a whale, but after 2.5 hours I just got too cold and headed in for a warm cuppa tea and sod’s law just as I had my tea in my hand everyone started shouting. I walked out side as the boat turned and headed the in the direction that it was spotted and after about 5 mins we managed to locate a mother and calf. Unfortunately we didn’t see them jump out of the water ‘breach’ but we seen them coming to the surface breathing shots of water in to the sky about 3 meters high. We tracked them for about half an hour watching them come to the surface 3 or 4 time before diving down for 4-5 mins and then trying to find them when they came back up again.
By the end of the trip Emily and I were well happy with all the dolphins we had seen and even though we only seen the back of the whales and there dorsal fin it was still better than nothing but the captain said that he didn’t think it was good enough so offered us to come back again
A parrot
These were everywhere here and do the trip for free if we had the time - BONUS!!! So of course we booked it for 2 days time.
That afternoon we headed to Zenith beach which is positioned between two large mountains and again this beach was completely empty. From here we walked up the trail and on up the mountain which over looked the entrance to the harbor and the beach on the other side that we were just on, it was a magnificent 360 degrees view and we could trace all the places we had been the past few days from up here, just look at the pictures what a view!!
Most of the evenings here where spent quietly as this area is so dead at night and it was too cold to sit out side once the sun went down, so we headed to bed early most nights so I could get up early in the morning and make use of the day light more-yeah I know that is boring but there really was nothing to do in the evening here, everything closes down!
The following day we had booked our sand dunes tours which turned out to be such
good fun. Because it is low season here there was only me, Emily another English girl called Susan and our driver/tour guide Steve who was funny as hell and totally mad.
We learnt that these are the largest moving sand dunes in the southern hemisphere and move up to a meter a year and also surprisingly enough there is always fresh water under the sand dunes no matter how hot it gets here, all you have to do is dig down 3 meters and you will find pure filter fresh water, not what you would expect in the middle of sand dunes hey!!. The sand dunes where a 32 x1 km’s stretch of beach on the southern side on port Stevens and could be seen from the view point we were at yesterday.
We were all in Steve’s 4x4 while he rallied up and down these huge dunes (Guy you would have loved this!!) there were some times we were at 45degres to the sand dune before driving full pelt the whole way back down again and up the next own, I swear at one point we even got all four wheels of the ground when we jumped one of
the smaller dunes-great fun!
We then pulled up and the top of the highest dunes to get an idea of how big these sand dunes where. We then grabbed 3 sand boards waxed them up and sand boarded down the dunes, we went to the steepest section and I was surprised at how fast you could get but oh boy was it hard walking back up again, after 4 times I was totally knackered! On the 3rd run all 3 of us had race and I pushed away so fast that half way down with a huge lead over the other two my board started to go sideways and the I completely wiped myself out, Emily said it was so funny to watch, apparently all they seen was me streak ahead then suddenly huge cloud of sand with just a couple of legs and arms flying around the place!! Even Steve said it was one of the best wipeouts he had seen. I just couldn’t believe I was going to fast and still lost. I still had sand in my ears, nose and months still later that evening, it took ages to get rid of it all.
Next up we
visited and place called tin city, which is a group of tin shacks right in the middle of the sand dunes and if you don’t know there exact location it is very hard to find. These people here live here all year round and fish for food and make there of electricity from either generator or wind power. Also it was used in a Mel Gibson film, mad max thunderdome as some of you might remember
Also along the whole length of the beach where 10.000 concrete triangles that where used to stop tanks coming ashore during WW2, each one of then was so big that they had to be made in position and so there all that the dates and times they were made on them.
As I had been to sand dunes in Vietnam I was expected this trip to be alright but instead it was great, I had a terrific time and learnt a lot about the area which was really interesting. Also it was a nice comfortable temperature this time as in Vietnam the sand burnt your feet and all the sand stuck to my sweaty body.
That evening we decided to treat our self’s
Me and Emily
Yeah i know thats a bad pic, but the sun was in my eyes!! to something other than noodles or pasta and headed a local bar and straight up to the restaurant to find that they had a cavery on, I can not explain how good it tasted, for the whole meal we were just going Ummmmm! (You know what I mean Mart, don’t you) I have to say that it was one of the best meals I have had all year and I savored every mouthful willing it never to end. I said to Emily the only thing that could have possibly beat it at that time was if my granny had flown out and cooked it herself because she cooks the best roasts ever.
The next day we did the whale watching again, but this time there where a lot more people as the weather was lot better so the tour company took out the bigger boat which made the whole experience totally different again. We seen loads of dolphins again but this time we seen a few humpback whales which was brilliant as they were pretty close as well, what a massive fish!!! We followed and tracked them for about half and hour before heading back into port, Emily and
I were so chuffed that we had now been on 2 whale watches and seen so many dolphins and now 4 whales in total, we couldn’t have asked for more it was great and I would recommend it to anyone.
Once back at the harbor we then carried on north up to Port Macquarie which is about 2 hours north of Port Stevens. We were both very sad to leave this place and it was just so amazing and we kept find better and more interesting and exciting things about the place every day.
Well I hope I haven’t gone on too much, I will hopefully have another blog done in another few days, thanks for all the comments posted by everyone its great to hear from you, hope everyone back at home is enjoying the lovely English summer, take care
Charlie
PS remember there are 2 pages of pics to look through
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Eva and Si
non-member comment
gert big spiders
Helloooo mate! Glad you're back on the track with the blogging. Lovin the pics of the bootiful dolphins and whales but not so much the big hairy spiders, eek! Is it very cold there at the moment, you both seem to be well wrapped up but it looks really bright and sunny? Me and Si are off to Spain on Wednesday to escape the rain - Glastonbury just finished back home and it was a complete mud bath. Anyway, I'm off to read your next blog now.....