Birthday Camping at Cave Beach

Welcome to Cave Beach

To celebrate Amy's and My birthdays, we ventured down to Jervis Bay where we explored Cave Beach Campground and the surrounding beautiful, deserted beaches.

View Larger Map

Amy and I set out early Friday with the rest of our party arriving Friday evening with a fire going and a Tyrannosaurs birthday cake waiting to be devoured.  The cake had to be defended from the kangaroos and possums roaming the campground but once it was made extinct we laid back and enjoyed the fire.  Smores soon followed.

Dino cake RAWRRRRRR!!!

Panoramic view of Cave Beach, click to expand

The Cave of Cave Beach

Saturday we woke up to sunshine and juevos rancheros a la Amy.  We took the short walk to Cave beach to enjoy the sunshine and waves.  The sun played hide and seek with us till early afternoon when it turned on full sunburn-inducing overdrive.

A well deserved break after bodysurfing

Cave Beach again

James relaxing as hard as he can

The waves were halfway decent and our mate John spent the whole day in the water on his surfboard, taking breaks here and there to have a beer or sandwich with us on the beach.  At times, he was literally the only person surfing on the beach.  A far cry from the relatively busy breaks of Manly.  Amy also tried out her new bodyboard and she was smiles from ear to ear.

Ahhhh....summer

Amy in a wave

That evening we settled in for a barbecue by way of Jeroen and Ramonda as well as having Simone join us with food reinforcements.  Kangaroos were everywhere in the afternoon and some came right up to check us out.

A curious kangaroo

Chris performing a mind-meld

MMMM.....bbq

On Sunday, Chris and Delia took a walk with their 3 month old (baby's 1st camping trip) and discovered a brand new beach, totally deserted.  After some chocolate-chip banana pancakes, we ventured out to it to find it sparsely populated with people but densely packed with beautiful waves.  We proceeded to play in the water till exhaustion and sunburn set in and then packed up for the trip home.

Amy bushwacking to a new beach

Worth the walk

Momma Roo with a Joey in the pouch

All by ourselves

I call this side of the beach!

Ryan's Swamp, near the campground

 We are greatly looking forward to going back in a couple weeks as part of the whirlwind tour when Oakley and Amy come out to visit!

Cairns Part II: Welcome to the Jungle

The latter part of our Cairns adventure was land-based and took us to the Daintree Rainforest region. Up there we hiked through the jungle and took a river cruise to see the abundant wildlife and verdant scenery.


View Larger Map

One thing that is commonplace up there that we do not have in Sydney is the saltwater crocs. These can grow up to 24 feet long and inhabit most of the waterways and beaches. In fact, there were signs at all of these areas warning you of the danger posed. Glad I don't have to worry about that every time we go out in the water down in Sydney.

Croc entering the water

No one volunteered to go in to find him

Go ahead and take a swim, what are the odds...?

And, if you weren't put off by the "Croc Danger" signs, they were often accompanied by the Box Jellyfish Warning signs at all the beaches. Mother Nature simply does not want you in the water.

If the crocs don't get you, the jellyfish are waiting

The crocs were evident on the river cruise we took and we spotted several lying on the muddy riverbanks. There was also abundant bird species around the Daintree River, some of which got the birders we were on the cruise with into a stir of excitement.

Heron in flight

Azure Kingfisher, got the birders really excited

Once we retreated to the jungle to hike around (where only spiders and snakes are out to get you), we were treated to old-growth forest as well as the apparently croc-free Mossman Gorge river. If you were wondering what differentiates a rain forest from a regular forest, the answer is of course: the rain. In the Daintree region, they measure the annual rainfall in meters, rather than most places, where it is measures in centimeters. We were told that in the last year, they had 4 meters of rainfall. That is higher than a basketball hoop.

We had a great time up there, it was nice to get away from the city/suburbs and to escape into untouched wilderness. Time to start planning the next adventure!

River running through the Mossman Gorge

This tree could have supported an Ewok village

Daintree River, beautiful scenery

Mangroves lined one side of the river, rain forest was on the other

Lush rain forest running all the way down to the ocean

Butterfly in the jungle, possibly the only thing that is not plotting your demise

Bug Surf Day

Zooooom!

This past week Sydney was deluged by 5 days of apocalyptic storms as winter made its presence known.

Fearless


Nice section at North Steyne

The only bright side out of this was when it eventually stopped, we were treated to some of the best surf conditions we have seen.

Paddleboarder riding the bommie Sunday morning

Hardcore surfers braved the gigantic swell and we went down to the beach a couple of times to witness the death-defying awesomeness.

He looks so small next to the gigantic wall of water chasing him

In addition to the beach breaks being larger than normal, the Queenscliff bommie was breaking as well in epic fashion.

Catching one last wave at the bommie as the sun goes down

At one point on Sunday, there were 3 helicopters and 2 boats out searching for a missing surfer. We saw them pull a surfboard out of the water but no body. Hopefully the poor guy made it to shore.

Try, try again

A few weeks ago, we had the good fortune of having our friend Webs down on the beach with us while we were surfing. Webs had his camera and these were the results:

Prepared to battle nature

Paddling out to the break is everyone least favorite part of surfing

Me on the left with a friend, Dan about to drop in on me.

Drop in (verb) - to intrude on a wave that another surfer is already riding

This is generally considered extremely poor form and should be avoided at all costs when you don't know the person who you are intruding upon. However, we were pretty stoked to have caught the same wave. Celebrations and high-fives followed.

Same wave

Same wave, I'm the last one standing, Dan in water below

Summer Camping 2: Port Stephens

One Mile Beach. Beautiful.

Towards the end of summer, we decided to have another go at fishing up in the Port Stephens/Seal Rocks area after our last failed attempt. We ventured up on a Friday evening with James and Debs not far behind. The race was on.

We camped at the amazing One Mile Beach Holiday park:

View Larger Map

Like our last camp ground at Treachery, this had its own beach. Unlike the last camp ground, you could go into the water without worrying about being dragged out to sea.

We made the most of this, bodysurfing and swimming for hours both days. The waves were perfect, medium sized but powerful and cleanly breaking. I actually rode across the face of a wave for a short period in a barrel for the first time, this was sublime.

On saturday, after a breakfast of chocolate-bannana pancakes and bodysurfing, we ventured out on a fishing charter via Pacific Blue Charters out of Port Stevens.

Amy, fishing for all womankind

This was a large boat with a knowledgable crew of typical chauvanistic Aussie blokes running the operation. The general attitude was that we were lucky to have the opportunity for them to share their boat with us.

Once we got out to the fishing site, we got geared up. Apparently they couldn't tell Debs and Amy apart either, as they continually called both of them, "doll". Goodonya, mate.

Amy defied them by catching more fish than the other 8 people on the boat combined for a total of 6 teraglin, 1 rock cod, and 1 flathead. James, Debs, and I caught 3 other fish over the course of the day.

The teraglin was something new to us, we had never seen these fish before. They fought most similarly to jewfish, which we catch regularly in Sydney.

At one point, the crew shouted out to the rest of the boat, "whose girlfriend is that in the back corner, I bet you're not bringing her fishing again". The doll they were talking abiut was Amy.

Response, "Are you kidding, if she keeps catching fish, I am going to bring her every time!"

What victory looks like

Anyways, with more fish than we could possibly eat, we ended up giving most of it away to the hapless charter-ees that were significantly less successful than our troupe.

We ended up cooling some with dill and lemon and the rest in a curry sauce. Mmmmmmm good.

Overall, it was a great trip. The campsite was nice and had a great beach and the fishing was leagues more successful than our previous abortive attempt. We left happy and stopped for ice cream on the way home, the perfect conclusion to any trip.

It's been a good week

The first autumn swell has hit and the waves have been massive this week. Good enough that 10X world champion surfer Kelly Slater was in the area earlier in the week. We managed to go bodysurfing 2 days after work and had some great rides both times. On top of that, Amy's parents arrived on Thursday and brought many gifts from America with them, including a new camera from Chris' mom and dad.

The above picture was taken with the new camera on Friday evening before going out for dinner and drinks as the sun was setting. The double rainbow was actually so big that I could not get it in a single frame. I took several photos and put them together with Photostitch.

We are off tomorrow for boating and fishing with the Legrands and then if the weather holds out, some hiking on Sunday.

Summer Camping: Seal Rocks

Summertime in Australia has been Bea-u-ti-ful and we have been taking advantage of the great outdoors this summer. Amy and I took a camping trip up to Seal Rocks, about 3 hours North of Sydney to try out the fishing there.


View Larger Map

We stayed at Treachery Beach, a great location and awesome campground. The beach itself is an incredible sight. From the campground, you hike over a 6 story sand dune and at the crest, the whole horizon is taken up by huge, perfect waves, broad, pristine beach, and massive cliffs.

Treachery Beach, deserted and beautiful.

It is a wild, ocean beach in every sense.


We hiked up and down it, watching incredible displays of surfing prowess and even saw for the first time in person, people tow-in surfing. This is a technique used to catch large waves using a boat or jet-ski to get the surfer up to speed and in the perfect spot for the wave.

Sweet wave

Tow-in!!!!

The next day, we ventured over to Seal Rocks to try fishing off of the cliffs. This was not meant to be. We had brought the rubber boat and motor and planned to troll around. The waves didnt look big from shore but once on the water it quickly became apparent that if we continued, we would capsize or simply sink the boat. Not far from shore, we got turned sideways and were thrown out of the boat. Sunglasses were lost, and someone got fishooked during the forced evacuation.

It was not one of our prouder moments and no, there are no pictures of it.

We settled for taking the boat to a lake in the area and napped/fished in more placid conditions.


View Larger Map
Bluey's Beach

On our last day, we stopped on the way home at Bluey's Beach. This was a locals beach in an area that is not very populated. We were once again treated to some impressive surfing and beautiful waves breaking off of the point nearest to us.

Ejected out of the barrel, so cruel

On the other hand, this guy is absolutely killing it. Win.

Treachery was a great place to spend some time and we look to go back there when we can have some calmer conditions to avenge ourselves.

Interested in camping or survival?  Come check out The Bug Out Bag Guide.