Easter 2012

Camping is the thing to do at Easter in Australia. It's generally the last of the good weather for the year (saying that, it almost always rains, but at least it's warm!) so we gave it a go.

I have been camping many times however my idea of camping and Mel's idea of "sleeping rough" seem to share a definition so we both had some modifications to make to our expectations for this holiday.

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We have wanted to visit Eden on the NSW South Coast for a long time. Ever since seeing the documentary called "Killers in Eden" which is about how, for over a 100 years people worked together with killer whales (also called Orca's) to catch whales.

The killer whales would work like sheep dogs to shepherd the whales into Twofold Bay and then alert the whalers by quite literally swimming ahead to their house and slapping their tales on the surface of the water. The whalers would then jump into their boats and row out to where the other Orca's had surrounded the whale and harpoon it. As a reward the whalers would allow the Orca's to eat the lips and tongue of the captured whale. The whalers only wanted the whales blubber and meat and had no use for the tongue.

It became known as The Law of the tongue.

Let us know if you want a copy of the documentary and I will send one to you.

Here's a short video from the documentary...

http://youtu.be/eJQnTCseGPY

So we headed down the coast and on the first night camped at a great little place. We actually had an entire beach to ourselves. Okay, no "facilities" but it was beautiful. Huge Sea Eagles watching us closely as we pitched our tent in the setting sun. Then we had a fire on the beach and a rather ordinary meal... (somehow managed to cook noodles cold???) there was nobody else around for miles though....

There are no real photos from the first night because we were in a bit of a flap getting everything together before it got dark.

Day 2 saw us arrive at Huskisson. I love this place and we are both seriously considering moving somewhere near here. It's a beautiful little seaside town. We decided to hire a couple of kayaks and paddle out. I apologise for the quality of the photos in the kayaks because I forgot to clean the inside of my case before I put the iPhone in so they are a bit hazy.

We headed up into the mangroves away from the Beach.

They were very cool - but the only wildlife we saw was a couple of sting rays like this one...

We headed out the front in the hope of seeing the dolphins this place is famous for but missed out this trip.

We then headed on to a place called Hyams Beach which the Guinnes Book of records lists as having the whitest sand in the world. It was actually like snow although perhaps my photo doesn't do it justice.

This was outside the shop at Hyams Beach.

This was our camp site at Huskisson (known as Husky by the locals) this photo was taken in the very early morning...

There are lots of nice beaches along the coast... this is Mollymook - Rick Stein has a restaurant here because the local seafood is so good. When we don't smell like a camp fire we will go!

Further down the coast is Narooma, it's beautiful and the seafood shop under the bridge sells the best prawns I have ever eaten!

The water is so clear... and it's just such a peaceful little place.

Here are a few of Mel's photo's - I actually think she should be a professional wildlife photographer... she always seems to show me up with her awesome photos.

Althought it's easy when the subject of the photo is so good!

We stopped at the Bega Cheese factory (in a town called Bega). Bega is a famous Australian cheese brand with a lot of history in this area.

Then we headed on to our final destination Eden. There was some bad weather between Bega and Eden as you can see from these photos that were taken only 3 hours apart. It was explained to us later that being right on the "corner" of Australia, this is where the weather changes. Gabo Island is just off the coast and has been the scene of a lot of shipwrecks over the years.

Fortunately we had booked a motel for the night so we didn't have to camp in this! But the next day the weather was perfect again.

There is a little old man inside this "car" driving up the hill in Eden. What a legend! It's only just big enough for one person! I wouldn't fit in there!

So that's about it - on the way back we stopped at this place called Camel Rock see if you can work out why it's called Camel Rock!