Day 13

13 February 2013

Took me a while to get to sleep last night as the waves crashing just over the road kept me awake.... I know it's a tough life.

Woke up early and went for a run along the beach to some rocks, it was tough going as sand was too soft so ended up hopping back onto the road for the way back. Went right down to the opposite end on the road until the Tomaree National Park, there is a couple of walks you can do here (which will hopefully do tomorrow).

We then decided to head to the information centre at Nelson's Bay to ask about beach driving and to get a permit for Stockton Beach. (Now you used to be able to camp here as well but has been closed due to storm damage). We came across a bookings centre before that and went to ask about a couple of activities that we were interested in doing. Ended up booking a Stockton Beach sandboarding tour & dophin cruise combo which was $39 each. Visitor Centre to get our permit which is $10 for 3 days or you can purchase a yearly pass for $30. Maps in hand, ready to go, but now high tide and will have to wait till low tide at 6pm!

Decided to do our sandboarding, so headed to Anna Bay on James Peterson Street where there is a carpark and this is where the tours leave from. There is a couple of different buses you can go on, so make sure you get on the right one! We were on the zebra bus so easy to spot!

There was only us and a family on the bus which was good, no crowds! The dunes they take you to are only about 10mins away but there are some nice views on the way out there of the dunes and water etc. You see some cones on the dunes and this is where the sandboarding takes place. They provide the board and give you a few quick instructions like sit on it and slide down the dune...and some rules like no standing up on the board (Joel's face dropped when he said this!)

First hurdle, climbing the bloody dune so we could sandboard down it! Hard going but made it to the top and everyone had to take a few moments to catch their breath before heading down! Joel of course wanted to go on the biggest baddest dune first and I wanted to go on the little baby dune first haha.

We then repeated this process about 6 or 7 times till we were worn out from the walk up the dune and decided to just wait for the bus to come back to take us back again.

The dunes are pretty spectacular when you are in the thick of them, total contrast to the big green rolling hills in the country.

We picked the right tour, as to the left of our dune was the "red bus" tour and there would have been 50 people trying to get their asses up and down the dunes at the one time, it looked hectic! We had a total of 6 people....

Had lunch at a park up the road from our camp and a swim in the bay across the road from home. Freezing but bearable as it was a relatively hot day.

We then decided that we hadn't worn ourselves out enough yet so we went and hired a double kayak at Nelson's Bay and headed out for an hour paddle. We couldn't quite agree on the right timing of the strokes and have decided in future that 2 single kayaks will work better for both our sanities!

Now we were buggered!! We had actually planned to drive along the beach at 6pm but we were to wrecked from the rest of the day so that will have to be tomorrow. Dinner, Home & Away, Sleep and we are out......until tomorrow.

Carly & Joel

 

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