Sunday 26/3
Out & about again , we headed down to Boat Harbour , not too far away from us . It's a small town / suburb of Port Stephens , and is basically a very rocky section of the coast , with many little bays .
Around to Anna Bay , which turned out to be a very busy place . It's at the northern end of Stockton Beach & dunes - it's called Birubi Beach at this end though . There are many tours and things you can do among the vast amount of sand dunes - sand boarding , quad biking , nature tours , 4wd tagalong tours , etc , etc , etc . No parking spots anywhere near the beach , so we kept heading toward Stockton.
Arriving at Stockton we went out to the beach , before following the road around to the Hunter River . There are great walking/cycling tracks all along the foreshore . The views across to Newcastle were pretty good, to Knobby's Head -
To Fort Scratchley that was used during the war -
Across to the southern foreshore -
And the magnificent buildings -
Driving around to Newcastle , we decided to have some lunch on the opposite side of the river , so headed near to Knobby's Beach . We sat beside the river and ate lunch , as it turned out we were only about 3m from the ute , but some nifty fingered little b@#$#@#s managed to steal 4 of the 6 tyre pressure monitors off the ute's tyres - this is the 1st thing that has been stolen from us in over 2 years . Karma will come into play for those little mongrels - the sad part is we won't be there to see it , but it will come to them !! The sadder part was we didn't notice they were gone till later when we were fuelling the ute up !!
Driving around the fort and around the city precinct , we cruised Hunter St , but couldn't find the Parthenon Milk Bar , no Hell's Angels either , so we headed up to a high point on the coast toward Bar Beach .
We found a surprise since we'd been here last , The Memorial Walk , an elevated walkway and then a lot of steps that lead down to Bar Beach - it's a popular fitness walk .
It's also commemorating the many men & women who lost their lives in WW1. Names are engraved on the silhouettes .
Here are the steps - and there's a lot of them !!
This is Bar Beach .
After watching a pod of dolphins chase 2 schools of fish around for a while , we drove back into the city centre , passing some fine old houses on the way .
Some sight seeing/driving done , we headed back to the park and a cool swim . This is one of the locals .
Monday 27/3
Today sees us at Fingal Bay , again not too far away , only about 20mins drive . Fingal Bay faces to the east and is a beautiful sweep of sandy beach reaching right around to Fingal Spit that connects Shark Island to the mainland - depending on the tides - apparently there re really strong water currents here and many people have drowned thinking they could make it across !!
There's a lookout where these photo's were taken from Barry Park - a popular whale watching area . There's a walk around the coast to Boulder Bay , there's not a lot of information about it until you're 500m into the walk . Continuing on we made it out to the tip of that headland , but decided it would be wise to go back to the ute as we didn't take any water with us and it was 27 degrees and very humid . Boulder Bay was another 2klms away . There's a section of Tea Tree forest that you walk through , other sections have been destroyed by fires in the last few years .
Port Stephens lighthouse is on Shark Island , there are remains of the old lighthouse keepers cottage beside the lighthouse .
This is the swimming beach of Fingal Bay .
Leaving Fingal Bay , we headed around to Nelson Bay and the Volunteer Rescue HQ , being patriotic , the flag was flying well !!
Views from the grounds were great , looking out to Yucaaba Head on the northern side of the entrance into Port Stephens .
Tomaree Head on the southern side .
Then below the VRA HQ is a beautiful section of the bay that you can drive beside .
That's it , back to the pool for another swim , and the other bonus is , there's a spa !!
Here's a map link :- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MIaeQVV3Td7VFLdjYaNDb6QzeV8&usp=sharing
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