Solitary Islands Coastal Walk - Korora to Sawtell

 

 

Day 3 was the shortest section, and we cruised in to Sawtell in time for an early afternoon tea. 

 

As well as Coffs Harbour jetty area, we encountered the following beaches: Diggers Beach, Charlesworth Bay Beach, Park Beach, North Wall Beach, Jetty Beach, Gallows Beach, Boambee Beach, Murrays Beach, and Sawtell Beach.

Here's one of those whales we were seeing a lot of. They're awfully hard to photograph.

 

Boambee Beach is a bit of a challenge. It's long, and you have to share it with cars, and with racehorses. There's also the airport right next door.

Solitary Islands Coastal Walk - Woolgoolga to Korora

 

Day two of our big walk last week covered another 12 beaches, would you believe? 

Namely: Woolgoolga Back Beach, Hearnes Lake Beach, Sandys Beach, Fiddamans Beach, Emerald Beach, Shelly Beach, Moonee Beach, Sapphire Beach, Campbells Beach, Hills Beach, Opal Cove Beach, and Korora Beach.

 

 

We also had close encounters with several of those solitary islands, and with a Brahminy kite. 

 

 

 

 

 With a surfer needing help getting dressed too!

Solitary Islands Coastal Walk - Red Rock to Woolgoolga

It's 60km of largely beach walking, with scenic headlands, little bits of rainforest, and the odd street section. We walked it from north to south, Red Rock to Sawtell, over three days, basing ourselves in Coffs Harbour. 

It's named for the string of lonely looking islands just off the coast. The scenery is great, specially if you like beaches. Or wildlife. We saw lots of whales, dolphins, eagles, kites, ospreys. Plus kangaroos and surfers galore.

 

We used a minibus taxi based in Woolgoolga to assist with our start from Red Rock.

 

Then it's off along our first beach: Red Rock Beach.

 

Other beaches today: Corindi, Arrawarra, Ocean View, Mullaway, Cabins, Darkum, Safety, and Woolgoolga.

 

 

 

 

A pair of White-bellied sea eagles

Remains of a shipwreck here. The Buster sank in 1893, and unexpectedly re-emerged out of the beach a few months ago.

Curl Curl beach and waiting for whales

It's about to be whale-watching season again, and there have been reports already of sightings of northbound cetaceans. 

So I killed two birds with one stone, by going to Curl Curl to look for them. I'd never really explored Curl Curl beach or nearby headlands.

 

 

 

A beautiful day, and I'm sure I'll be back to try out the fine-looking ocean pool sometime. But no whales this time. Lets give them another couple of weeks.

A new look at Newcastle

 

It was back-to-Newcastle day for me yesterday. That is, I realised it was nearly 8 years since I last visited the place. (The local one. I visited the slightly smaller UK Newcastle a couple of years ago.) See here: 2013 post  and here: 2019 post

Since I was last there they've torn up the rail line into the city proper, and replaced the last bit of the journey with a tram.

It's a nice tram, and it works very smoothly. I'll give it that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nobbys Beach is still looking good. It was full of kiteboarding birdmen.

 

 

 

And marauding ravens.

One negative change, I thought, was the demise of the Hunter St pedestrian mall. Maybe it comes to life at night. But it was pretty dead yesterday afternoon. Lots of very serviceable cafes seemed to have sprung up elsewhere though.

And then there are all the fine looking parks and open spaces. And the particularly fine looking old railway station. It's become a quiet spot to hang out, and it's filling up, or trying to, with art galleries and boutique arty shops and things.

Here's the old Customs House - now a hotel.

Tsunami? Not this time!

Narrabeen's wonderful ocean pool suddenly got very empty today.

The news this morning had been about a mega-earthquake in the Pacific, and tsunami alerts in New Zealand, Norfolk Island and elsewhere. Sydney's a bit further away, but it's still in a straight line to those Kermadec Islands.

A police helicopter came circling overhead. It was broadcasting an unintelligible message. Must be a tsunami alert! Everyone got out pretty quickly.

Comparing notes with the other evacuees, we decided it was probably a missing person request in fact. There was something about a man wearing a blue T-shirt. This was confirmed later when we studied the police notices. No tsunami today!

LATE UPDATE:   NSW Police announced late this evening that a missing 88-year-old Narrabeen man had been located safe and well in the CBD. Excellent news!

Don't tell (about Sawtell)!

 

That would be giving the game away. Though I think the secret is pretty well out by now. I even contributed to this situation when I posted about our last Brisbane trip, here: Travelling north again

It's just about half way to Brisbane, so it's ideal for a stopover. And it's also about the nicest seaside town you could ever hope to stumble upon.

The surfing duck of Rainbow Bay

There was a story doing the rounds of the world's media last week that was of critical importance. There's a surfing duck at Coolangatta's Rainbow Bay! And what do you know, the Australian media have totally ignored it, apparently thinking that a worldwide pandemic, an impeachment trial in the US, and rampant corruption at home are somehow more important!

In fact the surfing duck story was labelled as the most viewed story on the BBC's website one day. See here:  BBC story                                                                      Duck picture courtesy BBC

Well, I happened to be passing through Coolangatta myself a few days later. Obviously this duck needed to be investigated.

 

 

I didn't find it. Found a few other ducks on the beach though.

 

 

 

 

 

Plus some human surfers and some very big seas.

 

 

A nice visit, with or without its surfing duck!

More Gold Coast beaches and skyscrapers

 

Note the lifeguards' ute. The beaches were all closed following a string of drownings caused by the wild seas.

 

Note how some people snuck back in regardless, as soon as the lifeguards looked away.

 

Below: the view from distant Springbrook