Eden – albatross – dolphins – whales – Bermagui – bike ride

This morning we left at a relatively civilised hour and cruised up the coast, leaving behind beautiful Eden and coming into equally beautiful Bermagui.

Pete spent the whole day in the cabin, trying to get all the paper work completed to register the boat so it can leave Australian waters. An amazing maze of red tape… I was very happy, up on deck away from the amazing maze… The sea was calm and silky, with a big swell (so maybe calm wasn’t the word…) No waves, no wind, just a big, rhythmic swell, with a pink sheen on the water from the sunlight. Albatross with us, many of them, nearly all the way… I can’t describe how much I love these birds; they swoop and glide, and then sit cutely bobbing about upon the water before gliding off again, seemingly without any effort at all.

And yes, a small pod of dolphins gave us a fleeting visit. Pete did emerge from the cabin for a few minutes to go down and examine the engines and the bilges – he gets all the fun… While he was down in the port hatch, I waited for him to come up so I could take the torch etc. And there, right behind us, was a very big black whale, catching up! I made all sorts of excited sounds; Pete said, from below, “Yes, yes I will come up and see, very soon! But…I am busy!” By the time he came up, it was right upon us, so he was totally convinced that I hadn’t been WOO-HOO-ing for nothing… It was right next to the boat and then disappeared… We thought, for a few minutes, that maybe it was coming up UNDER us, between the hulls…this would maybe not be so very wonderful… But no, it had veered off towards the shore, and we could see it powering up, towards the north. With its friends and family!

The coastline along this bit of NSW is just beautiful. Thick bushland down to the shore; a few little towns; a bit, here and there, of green farmland; but mostly…bush, little beaches, cliffs, waves crashing on the rocks.

We arrived at Bermagui in the early afternoon – perfect time! But…oh dear and oh no… To get into Bermagui itself we had to go through a narrow passage between a sea wall and the rocky shore. Easypeasy I don’t think…because the waves were crashing, fiercely, ACROSS the inlet! Not a matter of surging in, scarily, but forwards, as we do over a bar! We held our collective breath and Pete very cleverly manoeuvered the boat so that we darted in between big thundering waves… He said his heart was beating 1100 per minute; I think mine was too and all I was doing was clinging on and staring aghast at the waves about to bear down upon us…(I am, as always, SUCH a great help!)

We are now happily tied up alongside an unused big black fishing boat called, punnily, Devocean. We unloaded the faithful bikes, plus Pete’s shiny new helmet, and cycled cheerily around this lovely little town. We had jobs to do – Pete had to register his mail (to register his boat) and we had to find a Justice of the Peace to witness his Stat Dec re the above matter. The JP worked at a local motel. She was very efficient, with the witnessing and signing etc, so we asked her – she seemed to have lived in Bermagui for many years - if we could ride our bikes to the beach on the other side of town. “No. Well I suppose you can TRY to ride them up a VERY steep hill past the HORRIBLE rock garden. Then you can go to the Blue Pool but you won’t be able to ride to the other beach.”

Well…she was more than a bit wrong. We were able to ride our bikes perfectly well up the steep hill, past the perfect nice big rocks set along the roadside (horrible rock garden??) and down to the Blue Pool, but NOT back up (push push…) The Blue Pool was wonderful. Built in 1939, with the steps resurrected recently (large and concrete), right down to the wildly surging sea, these pools (not just one Blue Pool!) – paddling and swimming – enable swimmers to splash about in great safety right next to violently thrashing waves. Wonderful!

The next beach was Beare’s Beach, which demonstrated another sort of garden – feral pests; don’t plant these! Mirror plants, groundsel, agapanthus etc etc. Fully informed, we were able to ride back around into the town centre without having to go up or down and more steep hills or past any more horrible Rock Gardens.

Before going back to the boat, we rode up to the pub and sat on the verandah having beer (guess who) and sparkling (guess who.) Right next to the pub was a huge and thriving…mirror bush… Landcare needs to get more active in Bermagui!

We unloaded the bikes back across Devocean and onto 2XS, and then went back to look at a beautiful art exhibition of bird paintings: Greg Postle. Pete thought we should take advantage of Bermagui, so we had some dips and another drink on the upstairs outside terrace, looking out over the boats. All very idyllic. We talked to some very nice people -Annie and Alan, who have lived in Bermagui for quite a long time – seachangers from Sydney. They said, “Next time you are here you can stay with us!” Well how nice is that! Alan’s brother John lives in Woodbridge (Tas) and is at present sailing on much the same course as we are, on his way to Canada…to sail the North West Passage… BRRRR!!

Tomorrow – Ulladullah, once we have got back through the surf waves at the entrance to Bermagui…