We spent the last night in the Hawkesbury river at Refuge bay, an iconic spot with a huge number of mooring buoys, waterfall, and wilderness all around. Being mid winter, the place was almost completely empty. Nice and quiet.
We left our mooring well before dawn for the short trip north along the coast to Newcastle – an urban stop to see Marc, Rachel and their boys for a few days.
Still a fair bit of preparation to do; food shopping, spares, snorkeling gear … handily we could borrow Marc’s ute with a carry trolley to ferry things to the boat which was parked in a basic marina in the middle of town.
Tilly had fun playing with Arthur and we had a few days break from the boat. But, keen to get north we continued on to Port Stephens on the 29th.
Just north of Sydney is a huge river mouth; a great sailing location with secluded bays, beaches and anchorages. We wanted to spend some time here away from the city. to test ourselves and the boat off-grid, with the option to put in somewhere for repairs of spares if needed.
Being the middle of winter, it was pretty much empty. A lovely area, but Rose and Tilly had come down with a nasty flu, so we took it very slowly and spent a few days not doing very much while they recovered. Thankfully, the endless weeks of Sydney rain had eased up and the weather was good.
We spent time on a mooring at Cottage point, on moorings off Hallets beach and Cottage Rock, as well as another night in Refuge cove where we managed a walk up to the top of the waterfall.
Its mad to think we left the UK nearly two months ago and I haven’t managed a single update here on the blog. To be truthful, the pace has been relentless. It’s only now, that we have finally arrived in the islands [Nouméa, July 22], that time and headspace is opening up enough to get some words jotted down.
We arrived in Sydney on June 1st and moved straight aboard Songline at Balmain marina. She’s a great boat, built for exactly the kind of work we want her for, but she was empty. No inventory, not even knives and forks … which meant that all we had was what we’d packed in our three bags from the UK, plus a few tools and spares I had bought when out in Australia the last time.
An offshore, off-grid trip needs a considerable amount of preparation and equipment, which meant full-throttle organisation was needed for us to get everything ready within a few weeks and then find time to sail north to meet our friends in Coffs Harbour at the start of July for the first leg over to Noumea (New Caledonia).
Our time in Sydney was spent with many, many soul destroying trips to retail outlets to buy everything from the missing kitchen equipment to paper and activity materials to keep Tilly busy for months. To marine stores for shackles, ropes, boat parts. Fishing shops for lures and line. Late night sorties to random suburbs to pick up surfboards and kayak. Supermarkets for multi-trolley trips to load what feels like hundreds of cans of food (though as we sit here in Noumea it feels like we still might be under provisioned).
We did manage a few down-days, going to the aquarium, the maritime museum, art galleries an a fantastic live show of Mary Poppins which was mind-blowing. Being able to use our friends’ car for a week was a godsend – thanks Andy and Jess!
We had a weekend in Melbourne to see old Bristol friends. Cold, refreshing, and nice to be away from preparation for a couple of days.
Our last night in Sydney was spent at anchor by the opera house after a tour of the “Vivid Sydney” lights in the dark.
Then in the morning, over to Manly to pick up Andy and Luelle for a 30-odd mile sail up to the Hawkesbury river. 6 or so hours later we tuck into Refuge Bay just before dusk. A frisky sail, with lumpy waves and a fair bit of wind… a good test for Songline and crew. The kids loved it!
Road and Ocean 