Steve and I left Byron with very mixed feelings as we were heading home and to the last stop of our amazing year of adventures. We were looking forward to getting home to see the family, friends and enjoy the comforts of Doris Street. On the other hand, our year of traveling around our beautiful country was coming to an end and we were heading back to reality.
When we left Byron we didn’t know where we were going to spend our last few days. We finally settled on South West Rocks but with it being school holidays we didn’t like our luck. Our stars definitely lined up!! ✨ Someone had just left early and freed up a site with view of the beach. We felt very lucky!!
Along with the view the toilet block was opposite!! Yay for me!! 😊👍
The length of the site was a bit of a worry. Steve had to do some minor engineering for it to fit. It was all good. It felt like we were on stilts.
Once set up we went for a walk to see what was around. It was a really beautiful spot.
There were beaches on either side. The caravan park over looked Horse Shoe Bay. The beach to the right had a lovely little inlet that was great for kids.
The beach to the left reminded us of Crescent Head. It had a big creek with a bridge the same as Creso.
We checked the local and had a quick drink but decided our view was better back at camp.
That evening the wind started to come up so we put the walls up to cook. Over night the wind really came up!! It was blowing a gale. Another reminder of Creso! Everything was flapping. It was strong enough to break the cable ties on the solar blanket. 😳
That day it blew crazy all day. The beach looked a little different from the day before.
The beach had turned into a surf beach and sure enough there were plenty of crazy people swimming!! We decided we weren’t crazy enough! The weather was perfect for a day at the races 🐎 at the pub. 😉
Unfortunately we weren’t too lucky.
So we took our very small winnings home to find the annex down a bit. The wind was so strong we’d lost a pole inside. The wind was still blowing a gale!! Thankfully we could fix it!!
The crazy wind continued all night. By morning it had gone!! Yay!!!
I needed bacon! So we went for brekky. The cafe did great coffee and awesome bacon and eggs! (and mushies!👍😊) It was the best breakfast I’d ever had!! The cafe also did these giant toasted sandwiches. We had one for lunch the day we arrived. They had double everything, were on thick bread and about 5cm thick!! Maybe humongous is a better word.
When we came back from breakfast there were whales just off the beach! We saw lots of whales off Byron but never this close. I was a very happy girl!😊
As the weather was so nice we went for a ride. There was a great bike path nearly all the way Arakoon.
Arakoon is the next suburb around. It has a national park with a fantastic camping area right on a beautiful and protected beach. It would be perfect for kayaking and paddle boarding.
Also right there and part of the national park is Trial Bay Gaol.
Trial Bay Gaol has a very long history. It started as a gaol for convicts and later it was an internment camp for Germans living in Australia and Asia during WW2. The convicts were used a labor to build the break water that was planned to establish Trial Bay as a halfway port to Queensland. There were many ship wrecks out in the bay.
The interned Germans were free to do what they liked to a certain degree and to break the boredom amused themselves by presenting plays, painting, putting out a newspaper and various other activities. Some took up positions in their area of expertise-for example doctors and architects. The convicts were also employed in a variety of jobs using the trades they came with. There were bakers, cooks, blacksmiths and builders.
We found it all very interesting. The gaol also had some resident kangaroos and were also saw more whales from the lookout.
After a tour of the Gaol we rode around the camp grounds before heading back to camp. We packed up a bit before setting up the cheese and biccies to soak up our beach front view and enjoy the very last night of our year of travel.
South West Rocks was somewhere we had always wanted to see and turned out to be great place to finish our trip.