Up and a quick breakfast. Back in the national park, there are two sections of beach you’re allowed to drive on. While Justine’s not that keen of 4x4ing, I’d like to give it a try. I don’t know too much about the beaches, but the recommendations are not to try and do them on high tide. High tide is at about 2pm, so getting out there in the morning seems the better option.
We’re leave just after 9am. Over to the ferry and the operator is just sitting there having a chat to another NWPS guy. The sign say’s it meant to operate from 8am, then we see that it operates only every 30mins. There are at least two cars on the other side, and now two more behind me, but no, we wait until 9:30 before he opens up the gates and lets us on. A bit slack and they charge you $6.50 each way too.
Take you time, whenever!
There are two sections of beach you can drive on, one called Mungo Brush, and the 2nd Lemon Tree, this is the further down, but reports are it’s the better. So we drive past Mungo and onto Lemon Tree. Onto the track and we pull over to let the tyres down, there are at least 4 or 5 others doing the same. We drop the pressure down to about 20psi and hit the track to the beach. It’s a really narrow track, only 1 car wide so we’re lucky we don’t come across any cars coming the other way.
Down on the beach, I’d normally try and get down to the wet hard sand water’s edge as soon as possible, but the sand down there does not look very wide or firm for that matter and there are set of well warn tracks up high, so I figure I’ll stay up here for the first section.
Keeping on the high side.
We drive 1 maybe 2 km up, in this soft sand the MUX is driving really hard, eventually it looks better down near the surf and we cross the loose sand down to the wet stuff, for wet sand it’s still really soft. I’ve really got no idea where we’re specifically going. Apparently at the top is a headland called Dark Point So we keep driving and after about 5 or so KM we arrive at the point. There would be about 6 or 7 other 4x4s here and the water looks really calm here on this south side of the headland. So we back the car up (easier to get away without getting bogged). First a bit of exploring over the headland, Justine and the kids go down to the beach on the north side of the head, Unlike the south beach which is clean and calm, the north side has a lot of seaweed and much choppier.
North of Dark Point 
After our walk we all go in for a swim, Liam and Caitlin aren’t keen on salt water or the waves, and while it is pretty calm, it’s great to see them enjoying the beach. They’re in for well over half an hour jumping the waves and trying a little bit of body surfing. Liam got dunked a couple of times, so gets our first. Caitlin sticks it out for at least another 10mins or more.
Now for the best part of going to the beach, trying to get dry, free of sand and into some dry clothes, all a lot more difficult than it should be.
Done, we start the trip back, I go a lot further on the wet sand this time and we pass about 4 cars parked along the beach, most of them are fishing. Then finally we veer back to the high dry sand before getting to the track back to the main road. This is steepish, narrow, dry loose sand so I’m pleasantly surprised we make it up with ease. The All-Terrain tyres and knowledge I’ve got the track give me a lot more confidence.
Seeing we’ve come this far, we drive into Tea Gardens and have fish & chips for lunch and then as the Ferry guy has annoyed me and it take about the same time, we make a loop back to the van park via the highway and Bulahdelah.
Tea Gardens for Lunch
On the way back we’re all surprised to see a dingo, probably a pup, cross the road, it stops just long enough for a quick (bad) photo. I think we saw only 1 on the whole big trip.
A really good trip and everyone has enjoyed themselves a lot more than they thought they would.
The afternoon is pretty grey and windy and not that pleasant. The Kids play on their tablets, and we try and relax, Justine does some reading and I’m here updating the blog. Everyone’s happy!