Coffs Harbour Sojourn 2

Mention of high winds in the last post reminded me that for the first three days of our visit we experienced high seas, so this post is all about gorgeous seascapes. These images will surely convince you of the aesthetics of waves! You'll also notice that two of the pictures were taken at dawn, which, at this time of year, occurred at about 6 am. If that appear rather late for mid-summer to my northern hemisphere readers, don't forget that (a) Coffs Harbour is around 30 degrees south and closer to the equator than say Cairo, and (b) that we're on summer time. The latter provides for longer evenings of course.

AS

Coffs Harbour Sojourn 1

We're hosting grandson Max for something like 3 weeks over the school holidays and last week we travelled to the coast for nearly a week. Dot selected the Aqualuna Beach Resort as our venue and the location was nice - right on the beach and fairly peaceful as we about 5 km north of the town of Coffs Harbour at Sapphire Beach. Our accommodation was not quite as good as expected, but we spent considerable time away from it ferrying kids around and going sightseeing or to special events. I use kids in the plural advisedly as our party also included one of Max's friends, Campbell.

Here are some images of the resort and you'll be pleasantly surprised by its look and feel. You can see the Tasman Sea in the background of the first picture. Facilities included a tennis court, sauna, gym and those sorts of things, but alas our demographic and the presence of two energetic 13 year olds precluded their use!

There was some interesting wildlife thrown in, including Ibis and Brush Turkeys!

Max and Campbell both preferred to head to the beach. It was not to go swimming because the beach was not patrolled by life-guards, the waves were often high, and we could see some dangerous looking rips which could easily sweep people out to sea ... even though Max and his friend were both competent swimmers. Instead they like explore the creeks, headlands, vegetation, and do gymnastics.

It might be difficult to make him out, but here's Max attempting, successfully, a cartwheel, followed by Campbell  doing a somersault.

They loved going to a local bouncing place. Here's Max almost in mid-air!

And of course they loved climbing rocks or other precarious places - fortunately no harm came.

Both Dot and I loved going for long walks along the sweeping beaches in the resort's vicinity. Here's Dot on one such journey. And I regularly walked alone at 6 am when the air was a lot cooler. During our visit, Coffs' temperatures were in the mid to high 20 s range, about average for mid-summer. Fortunately we had no wet days, though some of the time saw ferocious winds.

AS

Burrewarra

Burrewarra Point is located close to Tomakin and is the top pink bit on the larger scale middle map, whereas Broulee Island, the subject of the previous post, is the southern pink bit. Both locations are part of a much larger marine park.

Unlike the previous post, which circumnavigated around an island, the path at the Burrewarra headland snakes through attractive woodland across ridges and offers stupendous high-up views of sea, bays, beaches and islands. See if you agree with me!

An old munitions block-house - stored military equipment in WWII. Now festooned with graffiti inside.

Part of our party of 9 - including me.

An early glimpse of the sea.

Lovely coastal scenery.

Woodland pathways, with some easily climbable trees, as Ella and Flynn demonstrated rapidly. They might be very young but they're great at exploring such opportunities, first Ella and then Flynn once his sister has show the path to happiness.

The headland is festooned with Banksias, which grow these large flowers / seed pods.

Eventually catching up with each other. As you'd imagine correctly three different generations don't walk at the same pace. And capacities vary even within one generation! I'm used to speed-walking despite my 70+ years, which was useful as I could 'run' ahead of the group to take these photos.

These coastal views, mainly east and south impressed me.

And an amazed Bec heads out on a dangerous limb!

Ella re-living her exploits up the tree!

I have one further observation. The Burrewarra headland us home to rather strange 'lighthouse' and I'm sure I took some photos of it. However, they're untraceable, so go to the following web-site to see what I'm talking about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burrewarra_Point_Light . One can't go up the structure and it's not particularly beautiful, but it has an interesting history.

I've copied a photo of the structure from the wikipedia entry:

AS