Soaked in Batemans Bay

Patting 'wild' kangaroos at the Murramurang Resort in Durras

Following our first impressions of the Batemans Bay area we were both really excited to spend two weeks in this beautiful area of Australia. We had a list of all the different beaches we’d visit, bushwalks we’d take, markets to visit and so on. We also had big plans to catch waves surfing and many fish as this area is known for its great surfing and fishing.

Take away fish and chips beach dinner in Malua Bay. 

Two and a half days into our stay it started to rain, and it rained and rained and rained and rained and…..you get the picture. Most days it wasn’t just soft little raindrops, it was like the sky opened up and dropped, more like threw, buckets of water at you, wherever you might be standing. With roads in the area flooded the only real safe thing to do was hang out inside our “lavish” accommodations. I say lavish when I really mean crappy.

The rain did bring about some good, Pamela painted two amazing pictures, one of the Dead Sea and one of a floating village on the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia. It’s amazing for me to watch these paintings come to life from a blank canvas. Other rainy day activities included watching terrible daytime television on our 19 inch TV with only 6 channels, reading books, cooking and playing the Wii. Thankfully we brought our new Nintendo Wii which helped us weather the storm. I can safely say that we’ve both become pro’s at golf, bowling, tennis, ping pong and many other sports we practiced over and over during those long days of rain.

Guerilla Bay, along with being a great place to snorkel, is just one of the many quiet beaches in and around Batemans Bay.

During the rainstorm, Pamela’s mum and brother joined us for a weekend of Nintendo Wii. While they were visiting we drove down to Moruya to visit the outdoor markets. Fortunately for us, the few vendors that did brave the weather were pretty good. We walked away with fresh honey, peanuts, avocados and other things that I don’t recall. When I go to the markets I tend to tune out a bit so my recollection of the event isn’t always that great. From Moruya we drove down to the beautiful seaside town of Narooma to take some photos of the area and have a coffee at a really cool boathouse café called the Quaterdeck. It’s a shame the weather was bad as we would have loved to spend more time in the little picturesque town. On our way home from Narooma we stopped at a cool dairy/café in the very small town of Bodalla where we picked up some cheese, fresh yogurt (they packed it for us) and some cool photos.

With our car at Lonely Beach

Enjoying Pebbly Beach in the Murramurang National Park

Eight days after the rain started it stopped for about a day and a half. The sun was out and we took advantage. Two mornings in a row of successful surf lessons, read about them here, had us in the little town of South Durras which is about 20 minutes north of Batemans Bay. The town, which lies in and around Murramarang National Park boasts some amazing beaches and the Murramurang Resort which has an amazing location on a small protected beach at the north end of town. Following our surfing lessons we headed to the resort for a coffee and a day at the beach which would include patting wild kangaroos, spotting the many dolphins that frequent the area, fishing off the beach or rocks, collecting shells and just lounging about. This place was one of my favorite of the whole trip and I would recommend it to anyone. At the most we saw five other people on the beach at any given time so it’s safe to say there are more kangaroos than people. Fishing, although not fruitful, was still very relaxing. The views of the surrounding beaches and islands are amazing and the steady stream of dolphins really helped brighten up the day. Who doesn’t love dolphins?

Dallas, Jannie and Pamela enjoying the views from Narooma

Surprise, surprise, shortly after our day and a half of sun it started to rain again. We spent the next couple days inside practicing our Wii, not that we need much practice anymore and watching terrible TV. The day before we were about to leave the rain stopped for a few hours so we headed off to the river for a last ditch fishing attempt, we hadn’t caught a thing so far. Casting our lines into this new area we started to get nibbles just about right away. Unfortunately, most of the nibbles turned out to be just that…Until I landed one! Not a whopper by any means but just the same it was a fish. Throwing the little guy back we were just happy to not leave this place without catching something.

A very quiet and relaxing beach at Murramurang

The last day we packed up our car and headed north with just one more stop to make in the area. We’d heard about a park in this area that lets you cuddle wombats and were confident that Birdland, just on the outskirts of Batemans Bay, was the place to do it. The $20 dollar fee gets you into the park to look at the many examples of Australian wildlife including two koalas, many kangaroos, birds and best of all the wombats. Birdland, should be called Wombatland, is a rescue for orphaned wombats and twice a day they bring a young wombat out to run around and play with guests. The trainer brought out “Bubbles” whom we got to pat and then hold on our laps. These cute, furry, little animals can run up to 40ks per hour (over short distances) and are not light by any means. I felt like I had a bowling ball with fur in my lap while I was holding her. I’m not much on cuddling animals but if I could have taken this wombat home with me I would have. Needless to say I spent the next 24 (more like 48) hours talking about how we have to get a pet wombat. The next day, walking around Bondi Beach, I thought how great it would be to be able to walk my pet wombat up and down the beach.

Pamela and her new friend "Bubbles"

Holding "Bubbles" the wombat

In the end we made the most out of our 14 (11 of them wet) days in the Batemans Bay area of New South Wales. We played with captive wombats, pet ‘wild’ kangaroos, learned to surf, caught a fish and enjoyed the pristine beaches and countryside.  Most of all we got to spend some quality time together in a semi-normal environment. We cooked all but one of our meals and stayed in the same place longer than nine days which had been our previous record over the last seven months. Although a bit far from any major city, I’d definitely come back to this area again and  hopefully stay at the Murramurang Resort when it’s not so wet.

More pics from our time in Batemans Bay can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/117257906652666550268/BatemansBayAreaNewSouthWalesAustralia?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave

Surfing Lessons – Day 2

       

 

The alarm went off and we slowly rolled out of bed for our second morning of surfing lessons. Click here for our article from day one.  Pamela was having a hard time lifting her cereal bowl and was seriously doubting her ability to get in the water. Fortunately for us her arms started feeling a bit better and we were out the door to meet Graeme, our Soulrider surfing instructor, at the beach in South Durras.

An empty half moon shaped beach at South Durras was calling our name. It will be hard to go back to the very crowded beaches of Sydney or Los Angeles after spending so much time at these untouched gems of beaches here on the South Coast of New South Wales. The smaller waves were perfect for today’s lessons of paddling out and catching waves in deeper water.  Prior to paddling out we reviewed popping up and standing styles to correct some of our errors from lesson one. Several practices under our belt we strapped on our leash and paddled out into the blue, more like green, water of the Tasman Sea.    

          

The first few waves were definitely warm up and just refreshing or memory from the day before. It wasn’t until Graeme called out a challenge to see who could ride a wave the longest that Pamela and I both caught the same wave together and rode it into the beach.  Riding the wave together was so much fun, I really think we’re hooked on this sport. Pamela ended up riding that wave all the way back to the sand and therefore won that competition. From there it was paddling out to try for wave after wave. Thankfully we took some breaks relaxing on our boards and having a good chat waiting for the next set of waves to arrive. Graeme caught a bunch of waves to show us how it’s done and was always there providing tips, and sometimes a nudge to get us on the wave.

After about two hours of lessons we had each caught quite a bit of waves and felt a lot more comfortable out in the surf. The hardest part at the end was trying to get our weary muscles to push up on the board to stand-up. The lessons from Graeme at Soulrider have really paid off, his lessons have really provided us with what we need to know to go out on our own and start surfing. If you're looking for surf lessons on the South Coast we'd highly recommend Soulrider. We’re both excited to surf again and have started looking at purchasing wet suits of our own with the hopes of surfboards in the near future.

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave

Surfing Lessons – Day 1

Totally exhausted but very happy. That’s how we felt just after our first surfing lesson. Pamela and I have decided that since we’re planning on living the beach here in Australia that we should learn how to surf. We’d heard it was great exercise but had no idea just how exhausting it was going to be.

Pamela catching one of many waves

We kicked off the first of our two lessons on a beautiful Monday morning in the small beach town of South Durras on the South Coast of New South Wales. We hadn’t seen the sun in seven days and were beginning to get cabin fever so the surfing and sun couldn’t have come any sooner. Situated about twenty minutes north of Batemans Bay, the small town (pop 400) of South Durras, looks to be more beach that anything else. Large, empty beaches line the coast here and we couldn’t think of a better place to learn to surf.

Having a great time trying not to fall off

Having a fun fall

We met our instructor Graeme, from Soulrider Surf School, beachside at 10:00am. A bit nervous, Graeme’s chilled out demeanor put our minds at ease as we put on our provided wetsuits, grabbed some foam type boards and headed to the sand. With the sun shining on our faces we practiced popping-up/standing on our boards again and again with Graeme demonstrating then providing feedback on our techniques. Confident that we got the pop process, we headed out to the waves. As this was the first lesson we simply held onto the leash and walked the boards out to keep them pointed in the right direction. From the beach the waves looked a bit small but as we walked out the waves seemed to loom larger and larger.

Dallas showing us how it's done

Once in the surf, Graeme helped us by telling us when to jump on the board, telling us when to paddle and telling us when to jump up. For the first few waves he even helped us by holding the back of the board to keep it straight. Catching the first few waves sounded like this Paddle-Paddle-Paddle-Paddle, Up-Up-Up-Up. Within the first few minutes all three of us had stood up on boards and caught a wave. Standing up for the first time was such a great feeling. Over the next 90 minutes we practiced catching waves until we could no longer lift ourselves off the board. Our arms felt like they had anvils attached near the end there and we were relieved to pull our boards in for the day. It was a great first day of surfing and we definitely got what we came for. Up next, day two!

Dallas, myself and Pamela completely buggered from our first lesson

More photos from our first day of surfing can be found on the Soulrider Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.197471743691952.35561.142365005869293&type=1

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave

First Impressions of Batemans Bay

Our trip to Batemans Bay on the South Coast of New South Wales started on Friday afternoon with a  four and half hour drive from Pamela’s parents house in Carcoar. The mostly small country roads wound through beautiful scenery including rich farmland, lush rainforest and rolling foothills. With five minutes to spare for check-in we pulled into the Moorings Resort, our home for the next two weeks, and were given the keys to our two bedroom apartment style room.

The Moorings Resort, situated  in the small town of Tomakin and on the banks of the Tomaga River, is very basic in nature. Semi-clean grounds, a sandy tennis court and an indoor solar heated pool (it’s not really heated) are the highlights of the resort. Lowlights of the resort include the proximity to the main road which can be noisy, very small television and the lack of an oven are really the only things we can gripe about so really we don’t have much to gripe about at all.

With 83 unique beaches, several national parks, plenty of rivers and lakes this outdoor paradise of New South Wales called the Eurobodalla Coast is branded the ‘Land of Many Waters’ and for good reason. Seemingly around every corner lies a new pristine beach, slow moving river or calm inducing lake. This region, lying about four hours drive south of Sydney, stretches from the town of Shoalhaven in the north to Tilba in the south and is full of small town charm. Holiday activities in the area are abundant and include snorkeling, skydiving, cuddling wombats, gallery tours and big game fishing. Basically, if you have a pulse you should be able to find something to do around here.

After checking into our hotel and unloading our very-packed car we realized we were starving so we jumped back in the car and headed north. About 10 minutes later we were ordering take away fish and chips from a beachside café in the small town of Malua Bay. We spread out our beach blanket and ate our food on the beach watching the surf roll in; perfection.

Saturday morning we woke-up and paid a visit to small but mighty Guerilla Bay for a snorkel. This small beach and two secluded bays are in the Batemans Bay Marine Park and therefore protected nature reserves. The snorkeling in the calm bay was pretty good and consisted of many colorful fish and some corals although I wish I’d had a wetsuit as the water was a little cool for my liking and too cold for Pamela.  If  snorkeling isn’t your cup of tea then you can sunbake, look for shells or take in the beautiful surrounding views.

Following our morning at Guerilla Bay we headed down to the beach at North Head Maruya. Adjacent to the small Maruya airport we were able to watch the skydivers coming in just above us.  The long, uninhabited beach was perfect for relaxing until the wind kicked up and covered us with sand forcing us to make a quick exit to the car and on to crowded but wind free Broulee Beach. Broulee is perfect for lounging on the beach, snorkeling or swimming in the calm and patrolled crystal blue waters. Walking around the point at Broulee takes you to another more private beach with equally pristine waters connecting to Broulee island with bushwalking trails and a reported Emu or two. Fully cooked from the sun we headed back to our resort for a dip in the pool, and a game of tennis before dinner.

Sunday morning we made our favourite ‘Haloumi Slam’ consisting of poached eggs on top of buttered toast with avocado, fried haloumi cheese and a squeeze of lime. Completely satisfied from breakfast we headed 20 minutes north to Murramarang National Park where we spent the better part of the day lounging on beautiful Pebbly Beach. The park, famous for its kangaroo beaches,  is home to a beautiful rainforest and several unspoiled beaches which are inhabited by grazing kangaroos at dusk and dawn. Although we didn’t see any kangaroos (we were there at midday) we did see quite a bit of kangaroo crap on the grass next to the beach so we know the little hoppers are around. The best thing about these beaches are the lack of people, we were there on a Saturday and felt like we had the place to ourselves.

So far our first impressions of the Batemans Bay area are very good. The small town feel, empty beautiful beaches (remember there’s 83 of them) and lush national parks are the stuff Australian dreams are made of. We’re so looking forward to spending the next 10 days exploring more of the area and quite frankly are going to have a tough time fitting in all that we want to do in that time period. Hopefully our next report will include us catching a fish and a wave.

Sorry about the lack of photos in this article. Unfortunately we're only able to utilize a terrible Wifi connection at a McDonalds about 15 minutes drive from our resort. We'll get some photos in ASAP.

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave