Seal Rocks

We continued down the coast and went to a place called Diamond Head, which was supposed to be good for surfing. There wasn't much going on and the surf was all messy and rubbish so we carried on. We went to Forster-Tuncurry, which is the two towns of Forster and Tuncurry joined together by a big fat concrete bridge. This was another of those places with wonderfully designed tourist magazines telling you it's the best place in the world, but it was just another town and we weren't persuaded to stay. Gosh, we're becoming place snobs. What if we're just impossible to please now? We were thinking maybe we should just go straight to Sydney. I told Zappa that at some point I had decided I wanted to go to Seal Rocks. I could no longer remember the reason, and there was no mention of it in our remaining tourist propaganda, but I just knew I wanted to go there. So off we went.

On the way we unexpectedly started skirting round the Great Lakes (we were previously wondering where they were!) and they were beautiful! So peaceful, and in the late afternoon light they just looked gorgeous. I didn't take any pictures as we were moving but in case you're desperate to see it, here's someone else's photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/petaurus/3641146840/sizes/m/in/photostream/

I was getting tired and the light was going, it was clear we had to stay somewhere as we probably didn't have enough time to get back to Sydney at a reasonable hour. We agreed we'd come back and stay in the Lakes if Seal Rocks was rubbish.

We found the road that led to Seal Rocks with my expert map-reading, which turned out to be a track with the biggest potholes we'd seen so far. We didn't hold out much hope for it being amazing, let alone have anywhere we could stay. I started to feel guilty about insisting we come all this way to this random place for no remembered reason. But when we got there, it was incredible.

Perfect, peeling waves - the best surf I've ever seen - in the most beautiful setting everrr. And then - look right - there's a campsite!

 The second bay

 Zappa got straight on a sunset surf, and absolutely stunned me with what he can do now. He always talks the surfing talk but when I come to watch he just stands there - until today. He was doing proper turns and everything! I was so proud of him!

 Pelicans provide patient company for the fishermen

I am SO in love with this place, it's already my favourite place in Australia so far. You know how sometimes you just know something is just right?