We arrived in Batemans Bay on Friday after a short and relaxing cruise around from our overnight stop at Barlings Beach. Coming into the bay we passed between Black Rock and the Tollgate Islets and headed to Chain Bay to stop for lunch, have a walk and fill in some time while we waited for the high tide to cross the bar.
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| Tollgate Islets, at the entrance to Batemans Bay |
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Tollgate Islets, or maybe a dinosaur??
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Looking into Chain Bay
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| Rock pool exploration |
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Meander anchored in Chain Bay
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After some initial rockpool exploration we moved up the beach to the park. We found a group of kangaroos sheltering under the trees. It was quite neat to see a few joeys pop their heads out of their pouches, they sure looked heavy!
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| Who is studying who? |
And then it was back to the beach...
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| Chain Bay Beach |
We had great fun exploring the sandstone cliffs, climbing them, adding to the graffiti and generally marvelling at how cool it all was. Easy to climb rocks, real quartz & sandstone, awesome views, funky seaweed... And we pretty much had it all to ourselves. We saw about 5 other people while we were ashore.
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| Mermaid necklaces |
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| Quartz, of particular interest to Minecrafters |
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| Sandstone graffitti |
Then it was time to cross the bar from Batemans Bay to the Clyde River. We were expecting about 30cm clearance crossing the bar. The lowest depth we saw coming in was 2.5m. We draw ~1.9m so we were happy with that!
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| Clyde River anchorage, south of Princes Highway Bridge |
After anchoring we went ashore to check out the metropolis of Batemans Bay...
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| To walk, or not to walk. That is the question...! |
On Saturday we stopped traffic with Meander, literally! Well, it was the tourist boat that stopped the traffic but we delayed the restart for a bit. The ferry goes through the bridge twice a day giving tourists a look up the Clyde River. It is possible (supposedly) to arrange a boat opening but the usual way through is to ring the local marine store and request to follow the ferry through while the bridge is open.
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| Crew preparing to travel under the bridge |
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| Bridge up to let ferry through |
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| And a little more up to let Meander through |
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| Looks OK, I think?! |
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| Made it! |
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Definitely through!! Phew!
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| Much better distance |
I was pretty nervous going through the bridge as we had never done anything like this before. I find it difficult to measure distances and stress doesn't help the accuracy. With our shade cover installed Giles was unable to see the bridge so was relying on me to say if it was ok. The bridge operator was waving us through (or was he trying to signal something?) the light was red (is that starboard marker or a stop sign?) and we were underway.... We made it through and the operator was waving at us to go faster, the words "hurry up" floated down for far, far above as we got closer, so we did!
The anchorage behind Budd Island was beautiful. Peaceful, flat and still close enough to town for another excursion. Motoring up through the oyster frame in our dingy was fascinating as the tide was low & we could see all the baskets with oysters growing inside. There seemed to be plenty growing on the posts too.
Just so you don't think it's all beach walks and ice-cream on the trip we also squeezed in a trip to the supermarket. So the trip back to Meander in the dingy included 2 adults, 3 kids and 3 bags of shopping. I guess we must have looked pretty low in the water!
Today (Sunday) we went back into town to go the the museum and water gardens (recommended by our friends on Division II). Sadly the museum was closed but the gardens had plenty for us to see. Bats (or flying foxes) filled the trees, ducks, terns, swans, red-eyed-chicken-of-the-seas (another Division II influence) and eels swam in the water (along with the odd supermarket trolley).
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| "Mum, if you were a duck you could have 11 children!" |
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| Lots of beautiful things in the water & some not so beautiful |
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| The Bats of Batemans Bay |
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Watching the bats
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While the bats were pretty cool hanging around in the trees, flapping themselves cool with their wings the kids really wanted to see
flying bats so with a couple of claps they did and I filmed the result!
After a hot walk we needed lunch. Our first family meal at a Thai restaurant was a huge success. Arthur was particularly pleased with his sunkist!
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Thai for lunch, it felt right given the temperature
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After lunch it was a mad dash back to the dingy, then Meander to make the 2nd bridge opening of the day. If we missed it we'd also miss the tide to cross over the bar in the morning and then the southerly to take us to Ulladulla...
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| Return trip through the bridge |
We made it with plenty of time. We anchored just south of the bridge again. Giles went for a 3km walk to get some more gas, the kids played and I prepared for a BBQ dinner ashore.
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