It rained most of the drive here on Sunday. Our lunch outlook from The Caves Beach Hotel (right opposite the beach) was wet, windy and grey.
We drove a short distance north after lunch to check out Lake Macquarie and found a pretty viewing spot at Pelican Inlet - but it was grey, wet and very windy by now.
Our "ocean view bungalow" at Caves Beach was a cosy spot to bunker down for the rest of the afternoon but our view of the ocean was greyed out .........
and conditions became more and more hurricane like as the evening light closed in. We felt our room shake as the wind got stronger and the rain pelted down ALL NIGHT.
The decking around the villas is meant to evoke a relaxed seaside vibe but in these gale force winds and rain it makes any movement from our villa a very unpleasant experience.
A welcome bottle of Moet and a "platter" of nibbles was part of our package so we didn't have to brave the wind and rain to find a meal on our first night here.
Yesterday, the weather was just terrible. Desperate to get some exercise we coated up as best we could and attempted a walk in appalling conditions. We gave up after about 30 minutes and found a local coffee shop to recover our holiday mood (?). Luckily we both brought lots of reading material with us so we were able to just bunker down for most of the afternoon and let the weather do its worst. We only ventured out as far at the hotel again for our meal last night.
This morning we woke to "quiet" ........ no sound of rain pelting on the windows -no gale force winds shaking the walls ........
Not quite believing our luck we set off early to the southern end of Caves Beach to see the famous caves for which this beach has been named ........
There they were alright, but the tide level was just a bit too high for us to see much more of the largest cave than this .............
Looking northwards along the length of Caves Beach.............the entrance to Lake Macquarie is just beyond that headland in the distance............
This was taken from the headland above the main cave - looking south ........
With more rain threatening we decided to drive further north to see what we could see. We ended up in Charlestown, halfway between Lake Macquarie and Newcastle. There were rain soaked glimpses of the lake along the way, but for the most part all we saw was bland coastal suburbia and low cost retail. We found a tasty Bao lunch in Charlestown - a nice change from eating at the Caves Beach eateries.
Luckily, the weather cleared a lot this afternoon. We set off along the beach ...........
This time we walked the whole way to the caves end of the beach and the tide was out far enough for us to explore these amazing landforms more thoroughly. We were able to walk right through the largest one and out to the other side where there was a whole set of smaller caves.
On the way back we even managed to take a pic of our little bungalow in a washed out ray of semi sunshine.....
Rob and I always enjoy our road trips no matter where we end up. This is the first time we've been to this part of the NSW coast, even though it's not all that far from Canberra. Conditions this week have been pretty bad, so not the best time to see a new place ...... but even so I don't think we'd make a return trip to Caves Beach.
The news from Victoria is wonderful this week. It's the second day today of zero new COVID cases (a second donut day - yay!), so all is looking good for our friends in Melbourne and borders between all the states opening up in due course. We feel so fortunate to live in a country free of the day to day restrictions and health anxieties of most of the rest of the world. We are really hoping to see Ros and Pete in Victoria as soon as we can!
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