Advertisement
South west rocks- told you it was beautiful!
Our camp site was right at the other end of this beach, on the left of the green mound We had another enjoyable journey up to Port Macquarie as we pasted though the great lakes which were huge and extremely picturesque, unfortunately we didn’t stop to fully appreciate it. It is great when traveling up the coast because you can either take the main highway or head of on the tourist routes which are a little longer but take you through some really scenic parts of the coast, I am enjoying drive this journey so much as there is always something cool and new to see even when traveling from place to place. Half way along the journey we stopped at a rest station for a drink and were confronted with Ayers rock!! The whole service station and shop where made out of what looked like paper mashe and made to look like a giant Ayers rock, well we certainly didn’t expect to find that just yet.
Once we got to Port Macquarie later that evening we got our tent sight sorted out and this time not only did we have use of a camp kitchen but we were the only campers there and the kitchen was more like a slightly run down wooden house with it own
veranda and bathroom! So we basically had our tent right next to our own private house ha ha how good is that for 20 dollar night between us!
As it was dark by the time we had set up camp, we grabbed some noodles (mostly what we have been living on the past month!) and headed of for a walk around, we didn’t find much as we were a bit out of town so we decided to get a early night and head of exploring early the next morning.
As my Mum and Brother will testify I like my showers and have on the odd occasion have lost track of the time in the shower but never have I meet some one that takes as long as Emily in the does, I have no idea what she does in there. I have learnt over the past week that we have to get up 2 hours before we need to leave so she can have a shower and breakfast, I really don’t know how it takes 2 hours to do those 2 tasks but somehow it does!!
So finally after 2 hours we walked towards town to have look around
South west rocks
Right behind the beach the area, as we walked into town we past through a lovely park that follows a river to the harbor, as we walked our way through we were gob smacked by the amount of fruit bats everywhere. These bats are about the same size as a small adult’s heads and I reckon there were literally thousands of them hanging from the trees; just take a look at the pictures to see for yourself. What the pictures do not show is how bloody noisy they are, I have heard a few in Sydney while I was there but never this many all at once and it sounded like a small stadium of people screeching in chorus.
Once in town we stopped of at a lovely café in the high street to grab a quick sarnie and soak up some rays as it had turned into a beautiful warm day and in the sun trap where we were sat it was gorgeous.
We found the harbor just the other side of the high street and were very impressed on how beautiful it all looked here, there was even an old ship anchored there which gave the place a nice authentic feel as
The other half of South West Rocks
You can see why I fell in love with this place, it incredable! this was a penal settlement for hardened convicts who found Sydney to cushy.
We a walk along the harbor end and stumbled along all the large rocks that have been painted on my various people, anyone from happy married couples to travels passing through to local school kids that have grown up there, each on of them with there own little message for us passers by to read. As we looked down the walk way these painted rock must have gone on for about 300-400 meters. Some of the sayings were brilliant and really witty; I would have loved to do something for myself but couldn’t come up with anything good enough to write. We carried on and followed this small walk that took us around some of the historic sites and landmarks of the town, we headed round to the bay entrance and on to this mound were apparently the first flag was raised that signified that this was British settlement, but mainly we found the view a lot more interesting. We carried on round past a couple of beaches and then back towards town past the old courthouse and the first women’s jail. After the long strenuous walk
How many bats!!!!
I'm surprised the tree doesnt collapse! around the town ha ha we stopped on a large grass embankment that overlooking the bay and we fell asleep on the grass soaking up the remainder of the beautiful day - certainly beats working in Sydney any day!
The following day we had a relaxing and chilled out day by the pool area, I also managed to phone home to loads of people and had a good catch up with various friends and family and found out what was going on back at home which was really great.
The next morning we got up real early and hit the road to our next destination north, which happened to be a very small and extremely beautiful place called South West Rocks.
We arrived at south west rocks a little after lunch time and after a quick cheese and pickle sandwich we headed for the beach as this was the first time in about a month that it has been hot enough to go in the sea and have decent sun bath. We had a lovely relaxing afternoon soaking up the rays and then going swimming in the crystal clear water. We had heard that it was meant to be
absolutely gorgeous and that many people pass by as it is a bit of a drive of the main highway but it is so worth the visit. Not only was the temperature starting to rise again as we headed north but also the prices of things have started to noticeably go down since leaving Sydney as well which is real bonus.
Before the sun had gone down we decided to head off and find a camp site, we head heard of a nice camp site 3 kms along the beach right in front of an old jail so we thought we would go and check it out. We had a look around and found it to have the beach right in front with the jail overlooking us at the back. We were still unsure when we seen our first two wild kangaroo playing next to the BBQ area and that then sold it to us, we ended up staying here for 2 night and 2 days within that time we seen around 10 kangaroo’s including a little baby, hundreds of multicolored cockatoos, a porcupine type creature (which I nearly stood on walking back from the toilet one night!), a fox
and god knows how many varieties of birds and other bugs it was like having out very own little wildlife park right out side of our tent, every time we got out of our tent we were greeting with some different type of animal it was incredible and made the place which looked beautiful enough even more appealing and magical.
In the morning we headed of to the prison for quick look around and to learn a bit of the history about the inmates etc. The prison held over 500 inmates at on point and were used in making a stone break wall to protect the bay from the waves, but it turned out to be a useless exercise as after about 2 or 3 years of building it a big storm blew one day and blew the whole wall away - how pissed must they have been to see all there hard work washed away!!!
Emily and I then decided to head of for another one of ‘Charlie short walks’ which usually means heading of for a small hour walk and coming back 8 hours later hardly able to walk, and yes we did the same again but
it was amazing.
As we walked up and over this big hill we spotted some more wild Kangaroos, some more wicked birds and some other really cool empty beaches. One moment we were on a mound that looked like were could be on the beacon beacons in Wales and the next minutes we where on these beautiful beach followed by five minutes later trying to follow this barely visible track though a dense rainforest. As we walked the track seemed to get less and less visible like hardly anybody walks this far. The rainforest looked great with such different vegetation and noises but I must have walked through about 50 spiders webs which at first where really scaring me but then by the end were really getting on my tits!
After battling though the dense forest that went up and the back down the side of a mountain we finally came out of probably the most deserted beach I have ever been on, the only way to access it is to either walk though the jungle the way we did or drive a 4x4 down a very rough track to a small car park and the walk the rest of
the way in, so as you can probably guess we had the whole massive beach to our self’s to recover from the hard walk getting here. It was amazing looking at the rainforest coming right up to where the beach starts and then a huge hill either side of the beach and as you looked around there was absolutely no sign of human life or buildings anywhere to be seen - absolutely fantastic! Luckily we had heard that it was quite a hard walk so we had come prepared and sat down and enjoyed some sandwich and drink that we had thankfully remembered to bring with us.
After resting for a while we decided against walking the same way back through the rain forest and instead took the grueling steep winding 4x4 track up to the top ridge which then came to a car park and then finally turned into a road and got us back to the camp site about an hour and half later by which time we were both nearly crawling with exhaustion!
We were so tired after our day that we had something to eat and then promptly passed out in the tent!
Both Emily
and I loved south west rocks not only because it is a stunning place and our campsite was absolutely beautiful right next to the beach but the sheer amount of wildlife everywhere was amazing, it was so cool that every time you went to the toilet you walk past a bunch of kangaroos and you could go right up to with in a few feet of them while they nibbled at the grass, it will be an unforgettable experience. It’s right up there with Port Stevens and one of the best places I have ever been!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.184s; Tpl: 0.043s; cc: 17; qc: 71; dbt: 0.108s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 3;
; mem: 1.3mb
Eva and Si
non-member comment
Photogenic kangaroo's
They must just love having their photo's taken those kanga's, they do genuinely seem to be smiling! The density of wildlife sounds great, how cool must that be waking up, looking out of your tent and seeing allsorts of animals!?