Photo shows the daily fish feeding frenzy outside a fish and chip restaurant on the Broadwater. Pelicans and silver gulls are there for easy pickings and tourists come to goggle at them.

We are back on the boat in Hope Harbour marina on the Gold Coast after a few weeks pottering around up and down the east coast of New South Wales and Queensland. Our trip south towards Sydney was cut short when it became obvious that we had lost a good weather window and would be locked into the barred Clarence River for rather too long if we had left the Gold Coast when we could.

Not shy of opting for Plan B, we tied Sundari up in Hope Harbour and set off in Matilda, loaded up with kayaks, bikes, camping and hiking gear.



The Merc. loaded up with kayaks, bikes and camping stuff

We have passed through New South Wales plenty of times, but hardly ever explored what it has to offer naturally.

The NSW coastline is beautiful, but an awkward place for cruising, mainly because potential anchorages are mostly on offer only after navigating a river bar. In summer, the often constant easterly ocean swell can make many of these river entrances treacherous. When the swell is down, a few rivers are navigable to a deep drafted yacht like Sundari, but the entrance has to be precisely timed for a safe entrance. Once in, the rivers provide good anchorage, but you are then locked in until the bar opens again!



A few of many beautiful beaches and coastal scenes on the NSW coast


We are not new to bar crossings. We have crossed the often dangerous Wide Bay bar at the southern end of K'Gari many times, and have crossed into the Richmond and Clarence rivers in Saraoni. The most dangerous bar we tried to cross was the Vailala on the Papuan coast. We attempted this bar in Corsair with no beacons or navigational guidance back in 1989 and nearly drowned. The unsuccessful attempt meant we had to beat back against the trade wind for 150 nm to Port Moresby where we left the boat on a mooring and flew to the little jungle school of Ihu. The headmaster had been led to believe that we had disappeared and our boat sunk after we had been sighted trying to cross the bar by local fishermen!

Our wanderings took us on to the New England tableland, past gorges and escarpments down to the coast near Sydney. From Lake Macquarie, we explored each inlet in turn, travelling northwards past the Hunter, Port Stephens and the Myall Lakes, Forster/Tuncurry, the Manning River, Camden Haven, Port Macquarie, the Macleay, Nambucca Heads, Coffs Harbour, Sandon, the Clarence and Richmond Rivers.

Lovely, long stretches of sandy beaches between bush covered headlands and calm inlets punctuate the coast north of Sydney, but civilization in the form of condos, beach mansions and associated urban development is taking over in many places where the river mouths meet the sea. Weekends and public or school holidays close to any large city are times to avoid!

The weather was really too hot to enjoy too much strenuous outdoor activity but we walked where we could and kayaked in some lovely inlets. To beat the heat, we have just spent time up in the Border Ranges on the Queensland side, the Sunshine Coast hinterland and the upper reaches of the Mary River.



The hinterland of both the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast still have pockets of sub tropical rainforest and quite a few reservoirs turned into recreation resources.



As usual, we are always on the lookout for amazing wildlife opportunities.

If it hadn't been for a lengthy wait for our Australian citizenship applications to be approved, we would have made plans to leave Sundari on the east coast and make a trip to Europe (last time we were there was 2013!) and Africa (not sure whether that was going to be Entebbe in Uganda or Cape Town). Plans are somewhat hazy as the applications have only just been approved, but we don't actually become citizens until we attend a citizenship ceremony, the date of which is unknown!

It is now the first days of Autumn here and we have to make a choice whether to stay put, sail south, or sail north and leave the boat in Bundaberg or Gladstone when we can fly off for the two months away from Australia.



Finding places to kayak while we limbo dance!