We haven't been very prompt with updating the blog, have we..?

It has been 3 weeks since we departed Traralgon, we haven't been doing anything all that exciting or news-worthy, but it has been relaxing and enjoyable. Here's a bit of an update.

Our first stop was at Lakes Entrance. We parked in a caravan park for a few days and collected our thoughts after the hectic few months that had just passed. We hired a couple of kayaks and paddled with a seal in the inlet. We had been contemplating buying kayaks, and that experience sealed the deal, no pun intended! So, two kayaks were loaded onto the roof of the ute. We completed our maiden voyage in them the next day with a nice paddle up the North Arm of the lake system.

After a few days at Lakes Entrance we headed east, detouring along the way through Marlo, Cape Conran and Bemm River. We intended to stay in Bemm River for a day or two and have a fish, but the weather had turned on us and the inlet at Bemm River didn't look very inviting for fishing or kayaking. So, we camped the night behind the Bellbird Pub, not far from Cann River.

The next day saw us arrive in Eden. We had a few days here, again enjoying the beach and the sunshine. We took a day trip to Pambula, paddled the kayaks up the river and fished in the river entrance. We caught f*** all by the way. Not even a bite. The caravan park we were parked in is between the beach and a lake, but the lake has been closed off to the ocean for some time. This has resulted in an increase in jellyfish number in the lake. We found a lot of jellyfish we becoming stranded against the shore of the lake, so Kathy felt she needed to save them by turning them around. Not all jellyfish responded to the kindness, some just headed straight back to the shallows, but it wasn't a bad way to spend an afternoon in the sun.

From Eden we travelled the old coast road through Merimbula, Tathra and so on. There are some really steep hills on this section of road that had the brakes on the Landcruiser and the van becoming quite warm. 6.2 tonnes of Toyota and caravan has a habit of wanting to go downhill very rapidly. The upside of this route is that the scenery is fantastic in some spots, so we took our time and enjoyed it. We called in to catch up with Kathy's uncle and aunty at Tuross Head and had intended to stay in a caravan park in Tuross, but everything was full. It was late when we left Kathy's uncle's house, so we took a bit of a drive up the highway to a free camp in a roadside rest area for the night. The next morning we put the caravan in a park in Moruya and spent the day in Tuross again.

Heading north again, taking a few back road coastal detours, and we ended up at Lake Tabourie. This is another small town with a caravan park that is between a lake and the beach. The beach has an island close to shore that we walked to, and then we walked around the rocks to complete a lap of the island. It's another beautiful spot on the NSW south coast. Anywhere along this coast, you could pick a place to stop and the scenery is beautiful. We paddled the kayaks up the lake one day, and had a fish from the shore on another. This time the fish were biting, but I only managed to land one Flounder (undersized) and a Bream that was barely the size of my palm.

We left Lake Tabourie early on a Sunday morning and set out on to tackle the run through Sydney. It was our intention to turn off onto the ring road and bypass the whole thing completely. We had a good run, the traffic flowed along the freeway fine and we made good time. We experienced one butt-puckering moment when we came over a hill on the packed freeway and found a truck doing 20 km/h in front of us. There was some quick thinking, some tricky braking and a whole lot of s***ting, but we pulled up in time and all was good. I hate cities. I even hate being close to cities.

An overnight stop in the showgrounds at Morisset and then we drove out to Myall Lakes National Park. Finally, we get to stay out of a caravan park! That's one thing about travelling on the coast, there are very, very few places to free camp. It's mostly caravan parks or caravan parks. There are National Parks as well, but NSW tends to charge as much or more than a caravan park to stay in them. Mungo Brush campground in Myall Lakes NP is one exception. It is relatively cheap to stay here. This place would have to be the highlight of our trip so far. Camped right on the lake, plenty of birdlife, goannas walking through the campground, a rainforest walk, and a ten minute walk to a beautiful beach where there were no-one else's footprints in the sand when we got there. Awesome. We put the kayaks in the lake and paddled along the edge of the mangroves, turning down the river for a short distance before returning to camp. Along the way we saw hundreds of Swans, Ducks, Cormorants and Pelicans. We came across a small island where the Pelicans were nesting, and there were Pelican chicks still in the nest that we could see from the water. White Bellied Sea Eagles cruised the edge of the lake as we paddled, and the cries of Whistling Kites could be heard all around. The lake was smooth, the sun was shining. It was fantastic. We ended up paddling for 2.5 hours and covered just over 7 kilometres.

We stayed here for three nights, which was just as well because the second day we had rain, lots of rain. The day was spent inside the caravan doing a jigsaw puzzle. After leaving Mungo Brush we caught a ferry across the small stretch of water at Bombah, travelled a few kilometres of dirt road and continued north on the highway. That night we had another camp behind a pub at Coopernook and we treated ourselves to a meal in the pub.

At the moment, we are at Stuarts Point, just down the road from Grassy Head and south of Coffs Harbour. Again, this caravan park is near and inlet and a beach. It's a nice spot that we visited on our last trip around Australia in 2012, although, it is a lot busier now than it was then. We have been for a couple of trips in the kayaks along the inlet, and had a go at catching fish… unsuccessfully. We've been here for a few days, today it rained most of the day and we passed the time by driving to South West Rocks to shout ourselves lunch for our wedding anniversary. We're leaving here tomorrow and heading for a camping spot about 25km from Coffs Harbour where we'll spend a couple of days, then we might head inland for something different.

There are a few photos loaded up in the "photos" section to look at as well.