T+23.  Tea Gardens & Hawks Nest

I once encountered a mosquito in Zambia which could have passed as a small fruit-bat. Nothing though prepared us for the scale and onslaught of the Tea Gardens mozzie army. We decided to stay at the car-park in the grandly named Tea Gardens Country Club which is not in the country and is a bowling club. Still it was cheap and cheerful. Like most car parks it was concrete so where on earth this Luftwaffe of buzzing, whining, biting, dive-bombing horror came from who knows. I swear that there were so many they had their own underground war-room control centre in Berlin and were laser guided to their primary target. namely me.

It was 30 deg and at least 80% humidity. Time to move elsewhere you would think. No, not Roon and Family. We would fight them on the beaches and armed with gallons of repellant and many sweaty layers of clothing beat the buggers.

And so we had an itchy, lumpy, scratchy but terrific few days.

We'd been to Port Stephens south-shore previously and you can't help be impressed by its superb setting and stunning views, but we found it busy and touristy. The northern Myall River side though is much more to our taste.

Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest are welcoming little villages set on the river and ocean respectively. The beaches are wild and when we visited deserted, especially Bennetts Beach where Nelsons Bay meets the ocean. Simply stunning.  If you're looking for a sea-change look no further than Winda Woppa (truly).

The way to Winda Woppa

The Myall River and closest of the lakes are in Blueberry range so in a relatively small area you have the lot, including a great little library that adopted Joshua and his distance education needs.

Bennetts Beach

Not far from Mosquito Central lies a Koala Sanctuary so I set off on Blueberry's older cousin, which is neither electric or gaudy and is not known as The Ultimate Boneshaker (UB) for nothing. For the life of me I couldn't spot a Koala, but I did notice notice hundreds of creatures in the trees hanging upside down where the Koala's ought to be. A lightbulb moment!  These must be the legendary drop-bears, which for our overseas friends, are the rarely encountered and deadly version of our cuddly icon and which do indeed hang upside down ready to drop on unwary tourists and cause horrible injury.

And I thought it was a Drop Bear (photos attributed to google search)

Little Legend!

Problem sorted it was back to the Bowlo country club with news of my exciting find , but 'you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.

So it is my pleasure to award Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest ⚽⚽⚽⚽.  It would have been 4.5 but for the mozzie army and absence of Koalas.

Coming Soon:

Camden Haven Distance Education Centre

Missed the Bus 

Elton!