Taylors Beach

This pond was covered with ducks.

Tues 5^th Aug

We left Hull Heads and headed south with no fixed plan other than to go into a caravan park in order to charge the batteries after four days out and to get some laundry done. As we went through Caldwell we saw a laundromat open on the main street and it was empty so we did an about turn and put a load of washing through. In the caravan Mick rigged up some rope lines from end to end and we pegged out the wet washing and continued on our way. We saw a road leading to Taylors Beach and as we’d never heard of it we hoped nobody else had either, so long as there was a caravan park. We found one on the road in and the owner put us up in the emergency site – backed in between the office and the main entrance. It was quite a pleasant and sheltered site, with a building on one side, colourful trees and plants on the other and the swimming pool and camp kitchen directly behind. The only problem was that when we were in the van, the sound of the wind in the palm trees beside us sounded like it was pouring rain - Mick thought it had rained all night. After we got the rest of the washing dry under the awning, we drove down to the beach. The tide was out, exposing many sandbanks that wove their way through what looked like deep water. Several people were dotted around fishing from the sandbanks.  The mainland extended almost all the way around the bay. Through the opening we could see the difference between the calmness of the bay and the roughness of the open water. At 5pm we went to the camp kitchen for happy hour. Almost 50 people turned up and they were a very friendly lot. Even though they had all been in the park for at least 3 months, they made us feel very welcome and part of the group. They obviously have a number of ongoing competitions on the go – longest whiting, heaviest bream, longest golden trevally. The young chap who keeps the records announced how each category was going by telling them what they would need to surpass to win. It was a jovial group who obviously do this every night. No wonder people come here every year for several months.