After clocking up a few more KM's in the camper we arrived at Nelson Bay! This is a lovely little town with lots of secluded white sandy beaches! After a quick scout around the town we decided to check out Soldiers Point just a short drive away….. It was recommended as a fantastic place to watch the sunset and it really was stunning! As we walked back from the marina after dark we were greeted by a rather friendly possum waiting right beside the door to our camper! I think it wanted to join us as it definitely did not want to leave and was still sat outside a couple of hours later when we went to sleep.

The following morning we had breakfast overlooking the beautiful shoal beach with its amazingly blue ocean. Later in the day we headed to the Tomaree National park and decided to do the summit walk.... this steep mountain climb was a tad knackering in such hot heat but the stunning views certainly made up for it! Absolutely amazing, the peak overlooked all of Nelson Bay and its fantastic coves! On the way back down we took a slight detour to a section of the park which had a war memorial from the 1800’s (or so Joanna wrote in her diary, in fact it was 1942…..it made me laugh, obviously not the most interesting point of the day for her!)

As we were enjoying our lunch after our tiring walk we could hear some Aussie guy shouting across the road “Look behind you...”, we were thinking we should ignore the crazy guy and carried on eating our cheese sandwich but we eventually listened and turned round to be faced with a HUGE lizard (about a metre in length) which you would only imagine seeing in a zoo….. up jumps Jo into the back of the camper, I agree with her sense of self preservation and follow her to safety only to be embarrassed when she grabs the pap camera and launches herself back outside to get some cool pics! I enjoyed a glass of apple juice!

After the wildlife experience we decided to have some chilled out time on Zenith beach, this was a small beach cove with only 6 people on it with beautifully clean white sand! The waves here were crazy big... good fun!

After our short time in Nelson Bay came to an end we headed towards our next stop Port Macquarie…..