More On The Great Lakes Region

On 2 October, we struck out on our furthest venture afield yet. We rejoined the Pacific Highway and turned north, bypassing Macquarie and Newcastle and veering back to the coast just after The Great Aussie Bush Camp. We didn't notice Monkey Jacket as we passed. "What's a monkey jacket?" you may ask. Well, LMGTFY (Let Me Google That For You) - click the links in the previous sentence. We nearly missed Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest when we blinked, but soon entered Myall Lakes National Park.

I have to note that unless you are in a particularly hilly area or right next to the water, your view in this part of the country doesn't change much. The road curves constantly, and the vegetation, including wattle (acacia), is thick enough and the gum trees (eucalyptus) tall enough that your line of sight is extremely limited. Also, don't let the maps fool you: what looks like a nearly straight line on a map almost always turns out to be anything but.

Such is the case here. We wended our way along Mungo Brush Road, we passed a few trailheads and parking areas. We finally curled back northwest, away from the ocean, and stopped briefly at Boomer Campground and trailhead. There was a beautiful example of a "black boy", also known as a "grass tree".


Xanthorrhoea australis. There is clearly a campaign to stamp out the use of its common name, "black boy".

Continuing on around the north end of Bombah Broadwater, the southernmost of the lakes in the park, the road suddenly ended in water.


At the Bombah Point Ferry crossing. That's the (overexposed) ferry on the far side, with an SUV aboard waiting for departure.

The ferry runs every half hour, and is the only way to continue further into the park from this end. While we were watching, another vehicle joined the first on the ferry and it made its way across the gap. We decided not to take the ferry, as it was already about time to be turning back and we wanted to investigate a little more thoroughly back along the route we followed to get here.


Looking south across Bombah Broadwater from the east ferry landing.


Looking west across Two Mile Lake from the east ferry landing

The current as of this post google satellite map of the location shows the ferry at the same spot as in my photo above.

It's beyond me why they are still running a ferry over such a short distance in this day and age rather than just building a bridge, but maybe it's the historical significance that keeps it in business.

The one stop we made on our way back out of the park was at the beach at Dees Corner, which was deserted.


Dees Corner Beach. Well, this isn't really the beach. We didn't actually make it all the way out to the water's edge, so I took this photo from the dunes. There's also a 4x4 trailhead here.

It was past lunch time when we left the park and got back to Hawks Nest, so we grabbed some sloppy juicy burgers at the local joint. They were good... but not as good as those at Cooranbong Take Away.

We made a couple of detours on the way back hoping to find a particular bay, but eventually gave up and headed home. As an example of my earlier comments, our trip fully encircled Grahamstown Lake, but we never actually saw it even though the road ran quite near the southern end. In typically Aussie fashion, there seems not to be any place named "Grahamstown" nearby...

This day we travelled about 210 miles in a touch under six and a half hours. Considering we really only touched the bottom end of the Great Lakes Region and ended up where we started, I felt we made good progress.