Come morning a rather cool wind was a blowing out and across the bay whipping up some significant whitecaps. The sun was however shining as we left, once again heading north on highway one. It was still a dual carriage way which made for nice easy no stress driving. Obviously we did not want the day to be too easy so Ross in his infinite wisdom decided we would exit the highway and take the coastal secondary route through the Great Lakes area and then onto Taree. Of course it was not until we left the main drag that we realized that the scenic route was once again going to be very rough and very steep in places. The compromise was that the scenery was quite impressive and as we came across the lakes it reminded us of the coastal lakes area south of Nowra.
The road runs up a very narrow peninsula where it is bridged at Forster. On either side all along the road the eucalypt forest runs down to the lake shore on one side and the east coast on the other. A big chunk of the area is covered by the Booti Booti National park with some bush camping and picnic areas along the way. The problem is that just to park up and have lunch in one of these areas there is a day use charge. NSW seems to be the most persistent when it comes to charging people to see the natural beauty of the country. Had we realized just how many places require payment just to look at we would have purchased a 12 month pass at the beginning of our trip.
By the by… shortly before reaching Forster we stopped for lunch at Seven Mile Beach. A lovely beach within the national park and absolutely deserted. Then it was onto Forster and across the bridge that spans the entrance to Wallis Lake. Looking at our map we both had this impression that Forster would be some little seaside town but in actual fact it is like a mini-Gold Coast with heaps of apartment buildings along the beachfront area. All in all quite a nice area with the very wide lakes entrance especially pretty.
After Forster it was back onto the main highway towards Taree which as it happens we ended up bypassing and instead tracked down a small free-bee camp area in the forest near Coopernook. Once again a lovely little spot in amongst the forest. People we spoke to advised that come summer the place is absolutely packed and we could see why.
