It rained for much of last night and it was rather chilly too! We woke up to a fresh and bright day though, which continued to be sunny for the day!
We set off from Taree and took a tourist route called 'the lakes way' which took you the scenic route past 3 lakes and through Booti Booti national park. The first lake we came across was Wallis lake, which we drove along for a fair bit of the way. Part of it was surrounded by two towns, Forester - Tuncurry. Forester being one side and Tuncurry being the other. We stopped on the Forester side and walked along the water front for a bit. There was a sandy island in the lake where a family had taken their boat across to and were spending the day! We then walked through the town part which was lovely also. From there we made our compulsary ice cream stop at mcd's and continued along the route. We stopped further along and had a paddle in Wallis lake, and began to sink in the sand so made a sharp exit!! We continued along the drive and stopped at Elizabeth beach. It was a beautiful beach surrounded by sand dunes. We stopped there for a while to soak up some sun and observe the surfers! We're trying to work out the best tactics for if/when we have a go!!
Once we got hungry we carried on and stopped for lunch at a lake further up the route called Smith lake. This too was beautiful and there was a small sandy beach of pure white sand! It reminded us of lake McKenzie which we visited on Fraser Island. Once we had munched our fish finger sandwiches we went for a paddle! It was lovely and warm and clear blue water!
Back on the route and we were intending to stop at another lake called Myall lake but somehow managed to miss the turning! Time was getting on so we continued on to Port Stephens. We struggled to find a campsite that was near reasonably priced! It seems that this is a key holiday resort and with it being school holidays the prices had been increased to silly amounts!! We eventually found one that was nearer to what we considered reasonable, even though it was backpackers it still wasn't cheap! However, it turned out to be a lovely site! It was also an animal sanctuary and they had taken in different animals, including a kangaroo and many different birds, even 2 owls! They freely roamed around the site and we were advised to check our camper before leaving as one of the owls is rather friendly and has been known to hitch hike a free ride to the beach before!!
We had a very, very early night as we were both shattered again!