Tag Archives: birthday

Australia, Eden, NSW

Stuart’s Birthday Holiday, Part 5b

Although we were in no rush, it was time to get around to actually leaving the campsite and get to Green Cape lighthouse. On the way, we passed a lookout point and decided to stop and have a look.Wow, what a view. We didn’t think we were that high up but thankfully someone had the sense to clear some of the bush so that you can see the view.

This is Disaster Bay. So named because of the number of shipwrecks that have happened in the bay itself.

Apparently the bit of land in the middle used to be completely cut off and an island in its own right. Now the sand goes all the way to it on both sides and at low tide you can walk to it.

After a quick pause here, we headed off to the lighthouse.

Both the new and the old lighthouses as Green Cape.
Stuart at Green Cape wearing the T-shirt his parents gave him for his birthday.

Then it was time to head off somewhere. We hadn’t decided where we were going to stay that night, but we had a rough idea that it was not too far away and a touch closer to home. But we needed to work it out because of campsite fees applied, there was a chance it would be busy and the sooner we had booked it, the better really.However that was a job for later. Sadly tours of the lighthouse had to be booked in advance. There was no hope of an on the day turning up approach because all you could do was walk around the outside perimeter of the walked gardens. Walled no doubt because of the constant wind. Time to find somewhere to have a drink and make plans. Back to Disaster Bay lookout for a coffee.After coffee, we headed back to the Prince’s Highway and headed north. Our destination was to be Eden. At Disaster Bay, we had just enough of a mobile phone signal to be able to plan things. The site we had chosen for that night was one where there were no fees, but you couldn’t camp next to your vehicle. You had to carry things a short distance to the camping area and we guessed that that would reduce the number of people camping there. Families in particular wouldn’t want to carry things around with young children…Eden had a number of things going for it. One is that it used to be a whaling station and as such had a museum there. Two was that there was another lookout point, but we didn’t think that much of it. The bay had a commercial port in it because it is one of the few that are deep enough to accommodate large ocean going vessels. Three was that there was reportedly a cafe that did very good vegan food and Stuart wanted to go there for lunch. So after the disappointing viewing point (disappointing after Disaster Bay that is) we opted to leave the whaling station museum for another day and headed off for a birthday lunch.

Catching up with family and Facebook!

The Cafe was full of wonderful local produce and even sold locally grown heritage seeds for vegetables. 5 packets at a cost of $10 found their way into our shopping basket!There are dedicated vegan options even on the specials board. I opted for one of the specials whilst Stuart went with one of the standard vegan options. Even the sandwiches and wraps had vegan options and everything liked really good.

Stuart’s was the platter. Very similar to the dish I had which was balanced on a bed of greens.
Stuart’s cake, no dairy free though so sadly I couldn’t have any.
My date and salted caramel slice. I found it too sweet to eat all of it though.

After a lazy lunch, we headed off towards the campsite. Directions should have been easy but the turn left here please didn’t work until Stuart had run out of road! A minor diversion ensued taking us up and over the spur of land with a surprising amount of up on gravel roads. Once back onto tarmac it wasn’t long before we were at the campground. We’d selected the middle one of three, strangely called Middle Beach Campground because it was the most likely to be quiet, and quiet it was.

Just beside the post was the path to the beach. It was a surfers’ beach, not a child beach. But it didn’t stop us having a bit of an explore and a small walk along it.

This one gives a calmer view…

One thing in common is the grass in the foreground and this was something that the kangaroos and the swamp wallabies both liked.

Then it was a case of evening meal, sit around reading, and playing cribbage before an early night. All that walking along the beaches had tired me out completely.

Australia, Ben Boyd NP, NSW

Stuart’s Birthday Holiday, Part 5a

The big day had finally arrived. It just wasn’t dawn yet. In fact, it was still pitch dark.

Stuart wanted to see dawn in walking along the beach. And so instead of a lie in, instead of a nice comfortable bed, instead of breakfast in bed etc, his birthday alarm call was before it was even light. By the time we had done our teeth and (very quickly) got clothes on, it was starting to get light and by the time we made it to the beach and down to the water, it was almost light. But the sun wasn’t shining on us yet, it was stuck behind a cloud bank on the horizon, so he did actually get to see it “rise”.

And although it took a very long time, we made it to the far end of the beach.

Birthday boy. He went via a hairbrush when we got back to camp!

I found these two photos on his phone, so included them.

It took even longer to get back to camp.

One the where there, I came across this lovely patterning in the sand.

This image also came off Stuart’s phone but shows the size of our next surprise.

A Superb Lyrebird with its amazingly long tail was walking around the campground add though humans didn’t exist. It wasn’t very bothered about us at all.

Sadly it was still too dark under the canopy to get any really decent photos of it.

And then there was breakfast, watched carefully by that male kangaroo.

Stuart had decided that he wanted sausage and eggs for breakfast, so we had sausage and eggs with bread. We couldn’t quite (easily) manage the toast part. And this is the you’re doing what face!

Now for that roo.

With that, we started to pack up and get ready to move on. We wanted to go to the lighthouse at the very tip (bottom tip) of this bit of land and, well the weather was currently good…

But this campground had one more surprise in store for us before we left. With a final toilet trip, whilst waiting for Stuart, I was reading a noticeboard when I heard and spotted the longer grass and ferns between sites moving. Intrigued, but very wary, I moved closer until I could see what it was. Whatever it was, it was large and quite slow moving. It was between our site and the next one. Finally it showed itself in a small gap. It was a large lizard of some kind which set about climbing up a tree when Stuart arrived. But it disappeared before we could get a camera. We pointed it out to the man on the neighbouring site who was walking back across our site with his camera in hand. There was another one on the otherwise of Serenity on the tree. Getting my camera or of Serenity, we went to have a look.

Stuart went first, looking at the tree high up and down, desperate to spot it. Before he finally stood on it, I pointed out out to him. Apparently the guy had said it was on the tree, so Stuart having just seen one climbing up a tree well above head height, was looking way too high up to actually spot it. Well that’s his story anyway.

This one was huge. It’s a monitor lizard apparently and it was busy sunbathing.

A nice beach with a pleasant sunrise, a good walk and breakfast, along with some different wildlife had changed our impression of this campground overnight literally; it’s just best used out of season and reminded us of the need to check which campgrounds you actually need to book.

Birthday or not, it was also time to leave the campground.