Day 36: Seal Rocks & Forster

Kilometres: 308km

Diesel: 0

Food: $66.40

Ice: $8

This morning birds sang, kangaroos hopped and we shouted ourselves breakfast. Parking at a cafe overnight was a very good choice. Chris enjoyed a big brekkie roll while I chowed down on some raisin toast and banana bread. Yes…both. Once fully fuelled it was time to begin what we knew would be a few days of long drives.

The first 80 or so kilometres of our drive continued as it had yesterday, winding its way along ridge lines between two national parks. Early on we passed a dead kangaroo in the middle of the road, alongside part of somebody’s bumper bar. I basically held my breath for the remainder of the 80km as I scanned the roadside for erratic roos. White cockatoos filled the trees and sheep filled paddocks as we gradually made our way back to civilisation. Unfortunately, an excessive amount of litter also lined this road. NSW has been full of signs asking people to report illegal rubbish dumping. It seems this problem just won’t budge. We passed countless areas of dumped rubbish along with the usual litter discarded by passing cars. If I could round up everyone in Australia who litters, and put them on a boat to Manus Island and perhaps swap them for the refugees there, I’d do it in a heart beat. My guess is casting this large net over the litterbugs would also conveniently take with it some racist homophobes in the process. Win win if you ask me.

We hit the highway and made a beeline for Forster. Well, not really a bee line. We chose a scenic route and toured our way through the Myall Lakes area on our way in. Pete spent a large chunk of his teaching years in the Singleton/Forster area and we were beginning to see why he’d enjoyed it so much. We were sweating up a storm by the time we made it to the coast so we made a pitstop in Seal Rocks. The water was crystal clear and huge boulders scattered the white sand. We got wet and felt our body temperatures quickly drop to something within the normal range.

After leaving Seal Rocks, the road squeezed between lakes and ocean until we found ourselves in Forster. We parked up at the Surf Club on One Mile Beach and boy oh boy it was a great choice.

After a surf and grabbing some groceries and ice, we settled in for the afternoon. This place had everything we needed. Most places we stopped along this journey had some of the things we needed. A bathroom but no shower. Trees for slackening but no bathroom. This place had it all. Trees for slacklining, an area for the picnic rug, soft grass for handstands, drinking water, bathrooms, an indoor shower, BBQs. It had it all! And so we sat and utilised every inch of the amenities on offer.

We finished up the evening eating nachos at a picnic table and, once it was late enough, we found a street and parked up for the night. Forster…we like you!