South West Rocks

We are currently staying at a place called South West Rocks, which is situated on NSW's mid north coast. It's a pretty little town, which sits on the coast at the entrance of the Macleay river. It amazed us just how BIG this place is - we initially thought it was a sleepy little township, but you can just keep driving and driving round the houses here. Most of them are quite new, which also surprised us a bit - quite a few new developments seem to have happened recently.

Just up the road is the Trial Bay Lighthouse, which sits on one of the most rocky shorelines you'll ever see - it's quite obvious why the lighthouse is there! To get to it you travel about 8 km up a windy road through the state forest - a beautiful drive. When I was driving up to the lighthouse the other night for a look, I had to stop quite suddenly because in the middle of the road was the biggest kangaroo I have EVER seen - it would have stood a good 7 or 8 feet tall when it sat up. I have never seen one that big, and didn't even know they GOT that big - so I was shocked to find it in my path while sweeping round a bend at 80k's. He sat there looking at me for a minute or so, then hopped on his merry way. I'm glad he didn't hop in my way while the car was moving - I think the car might have come off second best in an impact....

Talking of kangaroos, we saw about 40-50 of them all feeding together in one little paddock by the side of the local pub tonight. (The pub is situated on the river bank, maybe 500m away from houses). Neither of us have seen so many of them in one place at one time - even at wildlife parks and the like. We were most impressed.

This evening for dinner, we drove into town and had fish and chips while sitting overlooking the water at Horseshoe Bay. Horseshoe bay, perhaps unsurprisingly, is shaped like a horseshoe, and is bounded at either side by rocky outcrops, which reach into the little alcove. The bay is only tiny - maybe 100m in length - but its calm blue-green water almost calls out to you to swim in it (which is a big call coming from a noted non-beach-swimmer like me). The beach has beautiful white sand, and is just gorgeous. There is a tiny little council-run caravan park which overlooks the bay from up on the foreshore, and that's somewhere we HAVE to stay at some point in our caravan adventures - it's that good. Grace had a great time running around the foreshore chasing the seagulls and whatever else that moved - picture is attached.