So we left off at Hungry Gate Campground in Hat Head National Park just south of South West Rocks. Now, the plan was to have breakfast at South West Rocks (after fishing) but we decided not to go fishing because it meant more stuff in the car for potentially only one or two fishing trips and then we also realised it was way too early to find breakfast (there were a few times the times of things were muddled up in the itinerary but hey, no one helped me with it so ╮(︶︿︶)╭ ).

We were meant to go to the rock wall but our GPS (Little Brother) brought us here instead. I’m on my L Plates and so Little Sister in the front couldn’t use the GPS because she was my supervisor. Yes, my Little Sister already has her Blacks whilst I’m still twiddling my thumbs on my second years of Ls.

This spot was nice for beginning the day though. Tidy with some dogs (we love dogs) walking around. The bathrooms here were really nicely maintained. They’d just washed them though and I didn’t realise I’d walked sand and dirt in there. I’m so sorry whoever cleaned the bathrooms that morning.

From there we drove on to Forster. We probably stopped somewhere for breakfast. I think it was just Maccas (McDonalds for anyone who somehow doesn’t know what that means) again.

Our plan for lunch was Forster. My partner’s grandparents live there and so I’d been there once before and wanted to show Little Sister and Little Brother how nice it was. We went to One Mile Beach and got fish and chips but the weather was not swim-friendly so we didn’t end up going for a dip. We also filled up all of our water bottles. Water filling stations quickly become your friend when you’re using free campgrounds. Brushing your teeth, drinking and cooking; free water stations are great for these. There’s one at One Mile Beach Surf Club.

I don’t have any pictures of Forster that don’t have our faces in it.

We went out and looked at the Hunter Valley a little. I don’t seem to have any pictures of it. I mostly just stared at everything. We got a little lost on the way there. Finally ended up at the information centre and still weren’t sure where we were going. On our way to our next campground, GPS led us up the wrong mountain and so we were lost for a moment there. Went up Mount Sugarloaf by accident. Gave some nice views though. And then after some extra driving, arrived at our campground for that night.

Again, no fires, no water and compost toilets. So standard free campground, which I’m totally okay with (Little Sister would have preferred otherwise but we be poor). It was pretty isolated, there were only two other campers there. There was a bush turkey that kept trying to rob us though. He tried opening our kitchen tub and kicked our gas stove box a few times. He was a bit of a jackar*e but I’m guessing that tourists kept feeding him and that’s why he’s like that.

I liked that majority of the campgrounds were kept clean. Most places don’t have bins (this campground was one of the only ones) because of the wildlife so we just bagged all of our rubbish and waited until we got into town. When we were leaving it was basically “can people tell we’ve been here?” and if not, we went on our way.

Most of this day was spent driving around the Hunter Valley. We really didn’t do much. Spent most of the afternoon telling a turkey to leave us alone.

And that was Day 2.