Batemans Bay, NSW

Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Mon 19 Jan 2015 23:46
This was next our stop and a chance to sit down and make a bit of a plan about where to go next.  Although we have a rough idea of where we are heading, basically city to city, around Oz, we haven't really planned the bits in between. We need to get to Adelaide by 4 February to catch the train to Perth. Getting from here to Adelaide is quite straightforward in that you can go directly across country, but as Melbourne is rated as one of the best cities in the world to live in, we though it would be same to miss it out. It was a bit of an effort getting here. We left Sydney at 11.30 on Saturday morning and by 13.00, we had managed 27km having been stuck in awful traffic for the whole time. Eventually we did get moving, but the three hour journey became nearly 5! 
Batemans Bay is a seaside town, which has all the usual stuff, including a travelling fair which was were there in preparation for Australia Day next weekend. The fair was nothing like the travelling fairs at home, the rides were much wilder! You need to be a whole lot braver to go to the fair in Oz than Wrea Green!
The part of the town we were in was Batehaven, a smaller area, next to the main town. What has surprised us is that there seems to be no pub culture here. The small towns have everything you might need, small supermarkets, individual shops, butchers, bakers etc, church, school but no pub or obvious social centre. There are a couple of small restaurants, but nothing that looks very exciting or inviting, so it is back to BBQ for us. 
The first day was Sunday, which can be an odd day. Some places are open, some closed. There was a market in town so we went there to do some shopping. Unfortunately, there were very few food stalls so we got veg and headed to the local fish shop where we bought flake, a fish I had seen before, which turns out to be shark, and very nice it is too. There are a couple of small touristy towns near by so we went for a drive. Both towns were a little disappointing. This is the very edge of gold rush country, so there is a certain amount of selling on that basis, but other than cafes, and shops selling Indian-chic and incense sticks there wasn't much going on. We took a picnic back along the coast road planning to stop off at the beach. By this time however the temperature had dropped from a hot and sunny 28 down to a definitely chilly 20 degrees, which I have to say I wasn't quite prepared or dressed for!  By the time we had eaten and set off again, it had started to rain a bit, so we sat in the camp kitchen and spread the maps and guidebooks out trying to plan our next steps. A couple of cold beers later and we had a plan!

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The slightly dark and windswept beach - not a good place for a picnic lunch!

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A flock of the brightly coloured parrots that are everywhere here - the birds are so tame and used to people that the kids at the camp site were feeding them crackers!

The next day we decided to give the bush a go. Whilst we are at coast, you are never very far away from a national park and the countryside. There was a bush drive to a camping area which, according the map, had picnic facilities, camping facilities and walking trails. This was our first real experience of the bush and off road driving - we  haven't really been on unsealed roads yet and it was as good a time as any to start. Having seen the travel brochure for the outback, we will be doing a lot more of it in the future! The drive was fun, the scenery beautiful but, as we have found before, the scenery is hard to see through the trees. Although the government/local council provide great BBQ and picnic areas, and well marked walking trails, there is a definite lack of stopping places along these roads where you can just take in the view, so you do miss most of it, even if you're not the one driving. We met another couple from the camp site who were also having their first bush experience, they had thought about buying honey at one of the houses along the way when they saw a sign on the road, however when they saw the house it was attached to, they turned and left very quickly!! There are a lot of dodgy looking dwellings (it would be quite a stretch to call some of them houses) along the route, we kept a close ear out for banjo music!  We knew we were in the real bush when kangaroos starting bouncing across the road, and we had our first near miss with a smaller one, causing John to slam the brakes on to avoid it!

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A lunch stop on our bush journey

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A road to nowhere?

After this we are heading across country to Melbourne. The camp sites are staring to quieten down as we we now coming towards the end of the long school summer holiday - which seems odd in January! The last weekend of the holiday for most people is Australia Day, on Monday 26 January, much like our August Bank Holiday. This commemorates the landing of the First Fleet into Botany Bay, Sydney.  Activities for the day seem to vary from parades and all day partying in Sydney, to a breakfast meeting and various speeches as was advertised in a small town we visited the other day.  We will be in Melbourne for the weekend where there will hopefully be some celebrations or something happening. 

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Huge pelicans resting on the street lamp - you needed to walk quickly underneath and not scare the birds! Even if it is supposed to be lucky we didn't like to chance being dumped on by one of these guys! 



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