4th
August …. Lake Macquarie
(Again forgive the random font size and colour... I'm still trying to work stuff out.)
The trip from Broken Bay to
Lake Macquarie was a good one, as far as I remember anyway. The
sunrise was gorgeous and the winds were favourable but choppy seas, a
close 2-2 ½ metre swell, a rocking horse of a boat and yucky tummy
induced me to pop a Kwell after which, as usual, I went back to bed
for several hours (I have now conceded that I absolutely need some
Paihia Bombs!!).
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| Approaching the entrance to Lake Macquarie. |
When I awoke, the seas had
flattened and the midday sun winked brightly off of the wavelets
caused by the very slight swell that remained. In the near distance
we spied a couple of whale spouts and fins but again they were too
far away to consider following. Instead, we watched pods of dolphins
that shimmied past going the other way and later on our attention was
caught by several sun bathing seals bobbing about with their flippers
and tails out of the water. Some floated alone, others in pairs or
small groups that totally ignored out presence as we wafted past
them.
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| A little closer to the entrance and a glimpse of the beautiful interior of the Lake |
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| The more I have looked, the more convinced I am that it's a very large shark fin. |
Approaching
the entrance to Lake Macquarie, we saw a commotion near the shore as
a white bellied sea eagle came too close to a seagull colony on a
large,flat rocky island outcrop. Gulls flew up en masse, flapping and
diving and screeching at the eagle which soared nonchalantly away
from the feathered flurry. Eventually the birdie brouhaha
settled down and the gulls went back to doing what gulls do when they
don't have chips.
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| One very large sea eagle being told what for by a whole flock of not-terribly-happy gulls |
A short time later we motored
through the entrance, took up a public mooring and waited along with
another couple of boats for the bridge to open. Time to relax, have a
cuppa and survey the surroundings for a short time.
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| Through the bridge (I really have to wash the clears sometime soon! |
When the green signal came and
the bridge opened, we followed another yacht through, which moved off
quite quickly ahead of us at a much faster speed than was permitted,
leaving us to putt-putt through his wake. We weren't in any huge
hurry as we were going to be pulling into Pelican Marina which was
not far from the bridge. The channel past the marina was
exceptionally narrow and shallow and so care needed to be taken in
order to turn around and tie up, especially since it wasn't high
tide. Luckily we were tying up to the T-head and even though it was
shallow, there was still water beneath the hull, which made it easy.
Once we were in and tied up, we looked around only to see that the
boat that had shot off ahead of us had not taken heed of the low tide
or narrow channel and had run aground. I know we shouldn't have
laughed but the guy had acted like an idiot and karma is a bitch
sometimes. He was able to move off when the tide came up but I'm
pretty sure he was a little red faced for the hour or so he was stuck
there, especially since there were quite a few small boats that went
past him from within the bounds of the channel. :)
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| And that's what you get for being impatient, rushing about and not heeding signs. |
We were greeted at the dock by
Bill and Al, the guys who run and look after the Pelican Marina, both
of whom live aboard their boats there. We immediately felt like old
friends and that evening we were invited to wander along to the
outside deck at the marina and partake of a few ales and wines, all
of which was supplied by the guys. We also met another couple of
wonderful people in Jeff and Shelley who also live aboard. Many yarns
were told, many drinks were consumed, many laughs were had and it was
the most fun evening we'd had in what felt like ages. We both went
back to Venture a little more tiddly than we had been several hours
earlier. We were also amazed at the clarity of the water and the
amount of fish that we could see around the marina.
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| Pelican Marina at, you guessed it.... Pelican. It may be small but the people there have huge hearts! |
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| Just a few of the many hundreds of fish swimming around the docks and boats at Pelican Marina. |
The following day we were in
need of a few supplies and so lowered the dinghy and headed on over
to Belmont, which was a good few kilometres away. On the way we could
see why that yacht had become stuck. The water was perhaps at half
tide as we headed over and the sandy bottom of the lake was clearly
visible about a metre to a metre and a half below, and the narrow
channel was a snaking band of darker water. As well as the sand we
also saw an abundance of fish of all sizes and some small rays. It
was actually pretty awesome but even in the dinghy we had to be wary
of how quickly the water shallowed off in places. Though the vast
majority of the lake was quite deep, it certainly seems that
complacency has no place in this part of it.
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| The airport at Lake Macquarie right near Pelican Marina |
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| Another beautiful view, this time towards Belmont |
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| A little Willy Wagtail sitting on a stump near the entrance to Cabbage Tree Palm Walk. |
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| A lovely little swallow sitting on our safety rails whilst we were in Pelican Marina |
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| The most beautiful corals and sponges attached to the walkway at Pelican Marina. |
After a little onshore shopping
and a great coffee, we made the return trip, this time detouring
through the many moored boats, some of which were truly lovely.
Whilst weaving amongst the vessels we were suddenly surprised by a
seagull that decided we had encroached on its territory and proceeded
to follow us, swooping and screeching and generally seeing us off.
I'd never actually seen a seagull behave like that but I figured that
one of those boats was the squat of a gull family. It probably felt
quite superior when we left. :)
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| One very pissed off seagull giving us a good seeing to. |
Dinner
that night was at the Pelican RSL which was walking distance from the
Marina. It was a really brilliant and obviously exceptionally busy
club and the Chinese food was just mouth watering. I ate far more
than I should have but it was a nice change not to have to cook. I
then had a flutter on the pokies and won enough to cover dinner and a
bit more so I was a happy Terry. :)
The
next morning we decided that we'd best walk off the Chinese meal and
so we visited the Cabbage Palm Tree Walk which is right behind the
marina. The walk is a cool, green and thoroughly peaceful retreat
from the everyday hustle and bustle and, even though you can hear the
sounds of civilisation, it feels a hundred miles away. We were almost
sorry to get to the end. Back at the marina we met two gorgeously
cute little dogs (whose names sadly escape me) and I had a little pat
and cuddle fest with them for a short time. Dave wouldn't let me
kidnap either of them.
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| Puppy pats and furry snuggles. |
In the afternoon we once again launched the dinghy and puttered over to Spectacle Island, a small sand island not too far from the marina. Though we didn't do a lot there, the views were lovely and getting my toes in the sand on the dunes was just lovely.
The following day at high tide we readied Venture to move on, left Pelican Marina and set
sail for Pulbah Island, which is in the Lake. Even at high tide, the
channel was shallow and despite trying to negotiate the deepest
parts, we still touched bottom on a couple of occasions. It would be
fairly tricky with a keel any deeper than ours (5' 8”) but not
impossible because it's a soft, sandy bottom. Once out into the lake
proper, it's a lovely open piece of water.
We
sailed to Pulbah Island and by mid afternoon had pulled up a mooring.
We were again amazed that, apart from a visiting maintenance boat
with three or four crew aboard who were clearing lantana and other
non-native vines from the island, we were the only boat there. Though
it looked beautiful from the water, unfortunately Pulbah (or Poobah
as we preferred to call it) wasn't all that spectacular.
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| Dolphin in the Lake. |
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| Moored in the peaceful waters of Pulbah Island on one of only a couple of public moorings. |
When we went
ashore, there were paths through the brush but many were choked with
weeds or vines and so we ended up following a pseudo path that had
been marked by the workers. We also followed the shoreline for a
while which, if not for the rubbish that was along it, would have
been quite nice. It's always disappointing to see that so many people
are too lazy to take their rubbish with them. We stayed for 2 nights
at Pulbah mooring before moving on to Wangi Wangi, which was made
easy after we were told to look for the three chimneys.
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| Some of the garbage along the foreshore! :( |
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| One of the better paths on the island |
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| I am.... the moon! |
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| A friendly little chap |
Easing
into Wangi District Workers Club dock was a doddle as they put us on
a small T-head, making it easy peasy to not only tie up, but meant
that we didn't have to stuff about trying to get around the back of
the docks. It was also private, with no one walking past and with
water as still as a mirror, it was perfect. The showers in the club
left a little to be desired, having to battle between hot or cold
water, with nothing in between, so it was a case of 'OwwwhothotHOT'
and 'Ohmygodit'sfreeeezing' with the odd colourful interjection
thrown in for the benefit of anyone within hearing distance. I'm sure
the sudden temperature changes did wonders for my circulation.
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| The three chimneys. One of the landmarks on the Lake's edge. |
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| (Above and below....) A beautiful sunset over the Lake from the dock at Wangi Wangi. |
After
a dry off and a cuppa, we checked out the club and had for dinner the
best wedges we'd had for ages. The whole time we were sat in the
booth, a raffle was going on, and on, and on. It seemed as though
almost every club member had won something by the end of it. The
whole club had a really friendly, welcoming atmosphere and it was
nice to just sit and enjoy it. Later on I once again had a very small
wager on the pokies and walked away with $350. Not a bad investment
for $20.
In
the morning it was time to look further afield and so the bikes were
unpacked, helmets donned and bodily joints tested for freakish
weirdness. With nought but my normal niggly knee goblins present to
give me any problems, we pedalled off along the foreshore bike track
to the small shopping area for lunch before someone (who shall remain
nameless, except that it was Dave) suggested that we cycle along to
kind-of-nearby Lake Macquarie State Conservation Park, hereafter to
be known as “WTF” (feel free to add your own interpretation to
that abbreviation) Park.
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| Feeling good before the trek from heck |
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| Note the shorter walk... yeah that's not the one we took |
It
turned out that WTF Park was at the end of a very long, very steep
hilly road, much of which we had to walk because the bikes have
ridiculously small wheels for getting up slopes. On the flat...
great! On inclines.... aaaaarrrggghhh!! We pedal/walked for
kilometres before finally reaching the Park entrance. All okay so
far, not overly tiring.... let's go.... along the shortest path only!
Agreed? Agreed!
Many hours later we emerged from
the deep green interior after somehow ending up on the longest of the
paths, with adjoining paths where there shouldn't have been and
direction arrows absent from where they should have been. We had
wandered hither and yon, up hill and down dale, along well marked
paths and barely trodden tracks until we could barely walk another
step. Every time we came to another unmarked junction a whimper of
WTF squeezed out of my almost breathless body with the most vocal of
moments being when I realised we had somehow walked in a huge circle.
The only real compensation was that I hoped I was losing a little
weight along with the gallons of perspiration that sprinkled the
shrubbery surrounding me. Somewhere in that park is an unexplained
green track of well watered plants.
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| An Australian Wood Duck in all its ducky finery. |
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| Another of those cute lorikeets. |
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| A gorgeous little Silveryey. |
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| Just another stunning gum tree. I just love the textures in these. |
The sight of the bikes
padlocked to the WTF Park fence was a welcome sight for sweat burned
eyes. However, it was not yet over. We still had the return journey
to make back to the boat, so a different road was decided on in the
hope that it wasn't as hilly. Hopes were dashed when we rounded the
peninsula past Wangi Wangi Park and found that, not only was the road
hilly, it was much worse! It turned out that the round trip on from
the club on just the roads, was over 10 kilometres, not to mention
the many, many kilometres walked in WTF Park. Dave worked out through
his phone tracker that we'd walked and ridden about 17 kilometres. We
were well and truly F'd.
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| The view across the lake during a rest stop in WTF Park. |
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| One of the nice lake shore areas that surround WTF Park. |
Finally
back at the boat we didn't move except to go to bed. Next morning we
left Wangi Wangi early in order to get in for a short time at Pelican
Marina at high tide prior to leaving Lake Macquarie and moving
further north to Newcastle.
We
had negotiated the shallow spots and hadn't touched bottom on the
return trip, so were feeling good about pulling in at the marina,
except that the fast and furious tide had not yet finished with
itself and we found ourselves caught in a huge eddy as we approached
the marina. It was fast enough to jeopardise control and make our
engines fairly useless for a minute as the whirlpool threatened to
pull us in and dash us against the dock. Dave had to give the
throttle all it had and do some fancy steering to prevent what could
have been a really nasty time. Once we had finally tied up and our
hearts had slowed down to a gallop, we relaxed until slack water and
then made our way once again to the bridge. We will come back this
way again because there was a lot we didn't get to do but as for
exploring other parks? Well we'll have to wait and see.
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| A daring young man in his flying machine just cruising over the lake. |
Location:
Lake Macquarie NSW, Australia
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After our informative chat, it was back to Venture for lunch and then a bit of an explore on Ash Island, which is part of the Hunter Wetlands National Park where there were a few ruins, an old radar station, wetlands and a beautiful native plant corridor. The weather was cool and the walk was flat and easy, along wide, well trodden paths and roads. It all seemed lovely for the first couple of kilometres. We lingered at the ruins of a house and poked about at the radar station. 
