We pulled in to a very busy ocean front campground. We drove along for awhile to find a nice position to park. We finally found an ideal position about ten meters from the edge of cliffs that went straight down to the ocean. The ground was flat and rocky, and if we walked around there were places that you could go down to the beach. There were views all round of the ocean, and the noise of the ocean waves crashing down.
The ranger came around early to collect the money for camping. Everyone was still asleep, but he woke Edmund, and Lucy and I; the light sleepers. I paid the $6 a night to stay for a few nights and chatted to the ranger. I asked him about the black fins that we had seen in the water. “If you saw fins in the ocean here, you would have been watching a Great White Shark or a porpoise.”
“O! Do porpoises have fins?” I asked stupidly. The ranger just nodded and gave her an odd look for being so dense. When I related this tale later, Peter, Susan, and Jarrad just laughed and laughed. We all decided that they were probably porpoises, as they had been too close to the shore in shallow waters to be Great Whites.
Lucy, Edmund and I sat outside for an hour or so in the morning while the others kept on sleeping. I read “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” while curled up on my campchair, with Brendan cuddling in to my side, and Lucy lying on top of me for a cuddle. We could see something on the beach in the distance at the start of the campground. I wondered if maybe they were seals or sea lions. It turned out later when they approached them that they were actually large rocks.
We went to the south-west of the campervan as soon as breakfast was finished and scrambled along the beach. There were rocks to climb on, sand to dig in, and lots of shells to collect. Before long, we were at a little tip where the ocean lapped at it around 300○ around the land. The waves were choppy, so no one could swim or paddle.
Back in the campervan, we ate lunch. Edmund was put to bed, and I wanted to read more of my book. Jarrad said, “I’ll go down to that bit there with Peter, Susan, and Lucy.” He pointed pretty much straight down below us. The ocean there appeared to be still, compared to waters around, as a wall of rocks surrounded it.
Peter, Susan, and Jarrad put on their bathers and lots of sunscreen. Lucy put on her wetsuit, and then I lathered Lucy in sunscreen. They had to jump down a small ledge of about a meter tall, then scrambled along a narrow path along the cliffs till they reached the bottom. We spent a delightful few hours jumping and splashing around in the water. There were tiny fish about an inch long swimming in schools. There were many schools, and they were happy to swim right around our legs.
The next day we walked down towards the rocks that I had thought were sea lions. We had to jump down a sandy embankment to get to the beach. There were caves all along the small sandy cliffs that lined the beach. There were lots of rockpools for a hundred-odd meters out into the ocean. We all explored the rockpools looking for more and more crabs, shells, and anything else we could find living in them to stare at. Susan got yelled at frequently to keep her foot dry. We spent an hour or so doing so, then as we picked our way back to the shore along the rocks we noticed that the sand was in the process of turning hard and grey. As we looked closer we realized that it was not hard enough to be stone, but was on its way to becoming stone.
Latest posts by Amy and Jarrad (see all)
- While in Sydney - January 24, 2013
- Festivals Around the World - January 23, 2013
- Off to Sydney - January 18, 2013
About Amy and Jarrad
