Johnblog

We hopped on the local ferry at Tea Gardens for a trip across to Port Stephens to Nelson Bay. It is an hour’s pleasant journey down the river and out across the bay. The weather was wonderful – mid 20s, light breeze and very sunny with puffy white clouds.

The ferry is quite ancient and a bit bodgy in parts – the inside seats appear to be old folding cinema seats and all the woodwork is covered in many layers of old paint – but it goes fine.

Aboard the Tea Gardens Ferry

Nelson Bay is much bigger and more built up than Hawks Nest with a huge marina, several resort hotels and lots more shops.

We had a wander around, scoffed an ice-cream, then hopped on the next ferry back and headed for our own beach – Jimmy’s Beach at Winda Woppa.

We hired a little half-cabin boat to chug up the Myall River for a few hours. A lovely sunny day, not too hot, made for a pleasant trip. A few minutes out from Tea Gardens and you are away from civilisation and alone with the birds and bush.

Lots of birds of all sorts, including sea eagles, egrets, black swans lots of diving+swimming birds and, of course, the magnificent pelicans.

We anchored in a quiet spot to do a bit of fishing. We tempted the fish with prawns, squid and a special pudding bait I had mixed up earlier. Jan caught two small flathead barely out of nappies and I caught nothing. Sigh!

The previous day fishing from Jimmys Beach I caught two small bream and a cute little ray. I also saw a sea eagle swoop down and catch a sizeable fish just a few metres away from me. That was my fishing spot so he stole my fish!

We have travelled north to Nelson Bay for a Aussie beach summer holiday. It was an easy drive up the Pacific Highway two and a half hours to Hawks Nest. We’ve stayed here lots of times before and we like it a lot. Out of holiday season it is very quiet (deserted!) and we have the beaches more or less to ourselves.

We’ve rented a duplex townhouse (two-storey semi) a couple of streets from the beach. It’s almost new and very well equipped. No water views, but lots of bush and lots of bird life. The dawn chorus is a bit much, especially the kookaburras at 6am! We even saw a koala crossing the road and disappearing into someone’s garden.

The swimming is good and the dolphins are active. I had a little go at fishing yesterday and caught one small bream.

Look on the bright side, I say – that proves there are fish in the bay and they will eat my bait!

We drove down south to St Georges Basin to see our friends Sue and Stan. They made us  welcome and we ate and drank very well!

Stan took us for a ride on his big boat (he has three!) a 22-foot trailer sailer – that’s a bermuda-rigged sailing boat with plenty of room for four and a cabin that can sleep two. We motored around the Basin to see some of the sights. It is a lovely quiet spot with lots of national park forest around it.

We dropped off the girls who walked back to the house through the bush tracks. The boys motored out into the basin to do some fishing. The catch was one small whiting which we threw back, but the fishing was very peaceful and enjoyable.

Stan is a keen bird watcher and has made his garden a haven for small birds with plenty of vegetation and several bird baths. It was entertaining to watch the birds taking a drink and a dip – tiny birds you don’t see in Sydney such as the yellow robin, the thornbill and the red-browed finch. Walking with Stan is a treat – he can spot birds you can’t see and he can tell you what they are.

We managed a couple of swims, one off the white sands of Hyams Beach and the other in the Basin. Water was lovely and warm, the air very hot! There were some big fires in the area a couple of weeks ago but the village of Basin View was spared.