We woke up very late this am, the latest since having the camper! Still feeling tired we dragged ourselves out of bed and got sorted. We had a chat with the kangaroo but he too was a bit tired and grumpy so we left him to it! While getting our bits together we noticed a group of people over the road looking up in a tree. Mark went to investigate and it was a Koala! He was very cute and cuddly!
Our first stop of the day was 1 mile beach which was just down the road from our site. It was a lovely long beach surrounded by sand dunes.One end of it is only accessible by 4x4 because of the dunes.
From there we went to Shoal bay where we climbed Tomaree head. It was a smallish mountain and the walk to the summit was only 1km, but was very steep! The views from the top were amazing! We could see right across the bays and across Port Stephens (which is a shire not a town). We were hoping to see some dolphins as there are about 160 in the bay, but no such luck! We did see many spiders though! Eughh!
From Shoal Bay we went to Nelson Bay which had a real holiday feel to it. There was a lovely harbour and man made beaches there, along with lovely harbourside cafes and shops. We had a mooch around and then headed back to the camper and set off on our way towards Newcastle!
Newcastle is very industrial city and we passed a lot of industrial estates and areas on our way in. We parked up for lunch and ended up chilling for a bit, and napping as we are again tired! We then drove around and admired the city, we even saw a bride and groom on the beach!
There didn't seem to be much to see so we decided to go and find a camp site and to chill and relax for the afternoon to try and shift some tiredness! We found a nice campsite in Belmont overlooking Lake Macquarie. Although this morning started very dull, it ended up being lovely and sunny so we donned our swimmers and chilled by the pool! We spent much of the afternoon there and went for a walk by the lake before chilling in the camper! Hoping that we feel better tomorrow!
One of the caravans near us has lots of xmas lights, the first that we have really seen!