Lakes, Oceans & Waterholes

Pioneer Park
L.O.W. Norah Head morning tea L.O.W. - Where's the rain? L.O.W. - Norah Head Perfect L.O.W. - lunch at Pioneer Park L.O.W. - those pesky immigrants

01 October 2022 / Written: John Purcell, Photos: John Purcell

                It’s Thursday afternoon and we have just arrived home from our latest run, the Lakes, Oceans & Waterholes. A pleasant surprise today as yesterday both Sydney and the Central Coast were hit by large storm cells and heavy and deep hail had fallen over the Yarramalong area along with rain forecast for all of today. 

                Today’s run started from McDonalds Cardiff with grey skies threatening but with most of the 10 cars with roofs down. We headed to the northern tip of Lake Macquarie to drive around the foreshore through Warner’s and Croudace Bays to Belmont before joining the Old Pacific Highway. Leaving the lake where it meets the sea at Swansea the group headed to our first stop at Catherine Hill Bay passing through the old miner’s cottages (now beautifully restored and worth a fortune) to the Surf Club for a bit of bird and whale watching.

                With the skies still remaining clear we were back onto the Old Pacific highway turning off to follow the road through to Budgewoi and onto the Lions Park at Norah Head for morning tea. Again the skies stayed clear with no hint of rain allowing us plenty of time to enjoy the sunshine and views out to sea while enjoying our cuppas.

L.O.W. Norah Head morning tea L.O.W. - Norah Head Perfect

                Forward to lunch, over the Entrance bridge toward Gosford and our first run in with wet weather. As the rain got a bit heavier some of the cars opted to put up their roofs taking advantage of the waiting time at one of the innumerable roundabouts in this area and, of course, as soon as the roofs went up the rain stopped. Still maybe if the roofs didn’t go up it would have kept on raining.

                Lunch was at Pioneer Park at Point Frederick where we were welcomed by a pair of immigrants, two English Mallards, who boldly met us at our cars and proceeded to join us for lunch. “Don’t feed them bread” says our resident birdo, Chris, “that’s junk food to them. Give them a tiny bit of salad” which went down ok until some raw carrot came out, no we don’t like that said dad duck.

L.O.W. - lunch at Pioneer Park L.O.W. - those pesky immigrants

                Having visited the Lake and the Ocean it was now onto the Waterholes via Central Mangrove and the Yarramalong Valley, with skies clear again and roofs down. It was here that the storm damage became evident with the run down Bumble Hill Road needing us to be a bit more cautious than usual as the road was covered with shredded leaves making it quite slippery. It was just as if a harvester had gone through the tops of all the trees and at the service station at the bottom of the hill the valleys in the roof still had inches of hail piled up.

                The final stretch took us along Hue Hue Road and Freemans Drive to the Waterholes where our run finished.

                Many thanks to Les and Kathy for leading our run to some new places for our group and amazingly managing to keep the weather under control.