Woke up this morning ready for another day enjoying the offerings of Umina Beach. Barb then threw a spanner in the planning with her bomb shell desire to spend a day at Bondi Beach, the setting for a favorite TV show, Bondi Rescue.
We’ve seen plenty of ducks in caravan parks and they can wander quite close as they look for free handouts, but not too often are they completely happy to eat out of your hand. At one point one looked like he was going to hope in the camper.
Ross said if we are going to Bondi, there is no way on this earth Ross is going there on any forecast hot weekend, so it was Friday or not at all. That means we need to be within stricking distance of Bondi and set up today for a morning drive to Bondi Beach.
The snore’er is a NSW local and lived at Bondi for a time and dropped another clanger … a day parking at Bondi is about $30 for street parking.
We looked at the time, 9.15am and checkout is at 10.00am. We had spread ourselves out pretty well with the intention of staying put for 3 days in Umina. Every piece of camping equipment, tables, chairs, matting, the works was put into service. For short stays we don’t unload the car at all.
As usual Ross decided to make a new friend when we are starting to pack up, the Snoring camper neighbor. The Snore’er lives two hours away in the Blue Mountains and pops down to Umina Beach regularly. In his opinion, the only negative aspect of the caravan park was the old useless security guards. He explained, for example, they were sitting near the playground last night talking and he reminded Ross how sound travels at night and how thin canvas is.
Ross was stunned … he must be completely oblivious to his own rendition of the Chain Saw Sonata coming from his camper all night. Ross agreed that some people can be real pains in the arse with their nocturnal noise.
We had 45 minutes to get organized, get packed and get out … we did it in 35, even including Ross’s chat with the snore’er.
We settled on the NSW Wildlife Service camp ground in the Lane Cove National Park which is only 10 km from Sydney on the North Sydney side of the harbor. Ross has stayed there a few time, and Ross and Barb stayed there with Ross’s kids, Ben and Ash back in 2005. On that occasion we arrived in 46 degree heat with Ross’s old basic canvas camper (basic means no aircon).
The drive in and out of Sydney to the north is nothing short of spectacular. The steep hills, huge bridges and enormous water ways and rivers are not matched anywhere else in Australia. The freeway run through towering rock cuttings, some with the roadway veering either side of rock formations left between the north and south bound lanes
We set up camp and headed down to Manly Beach for a swim. It was quite warm but a little windy on the beach. If the crowd on Manly Beach on a less than fantastic windy day is any indication, Ross’s reluctance to go to Bondi Beach on the forecast hot weekend was well thought out.
The striking thing about Manly was the very long ocean beach and the extremely small flagged area at the eastern end of the beach, and the amount of morons not only swimming outside the flags but in the areas signposted as dangerous.
The other annoying thing was the $4 per hour parking fee for street parking.
The Poo Poo Head added Manly Beach to increasing list of iconic beaches that he has nudie’d up at.
Back at camp, Ross and Poo Poo head went for a walk in the 400 hectare Lane Cove National Park tat boarders the campground. They came back with an inflatable volley ball (don’t ask) and the sighting of an Echidna. As night falls the unique sounds of the Australian bush start to turn up the volume. A great backdrop to drift off to sleep.
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