Part 4 – Tathra The Final Chapter

The next morning we are up bright and early to hit the road although we only had 2 hours to travel we didn’t want to waste the day driving but the 2 hours turned into about 3 as we had to take a long cut as there was an accident on the Princess Hwy, luckily for us only a few of days before we where in Deua National Park (https://wordpress.com/post/tassietravelsblog.com/943) so we knew of a way around the accident. So after a bit of a detour we arrived in Tathra relatively early and set up camp in the caravan park and had a look around.  (my family has been coming here for about the past 50 odd years so it is always good to come back and see what has changed. Brendan.)  First it was up to the wharf this seems to be the first spot I like to go every time I come here. From the beach looking towards the wharf.The whole eastern seaboard of Australia has seemed to have coped it pretty badly with the weather this winter gone and the old wharf didn’t escape the wrath of mother nature apparently this was caused by the massive sea’s back in July. It was probably lucky it was only a small section that was damaged.Was also a heap of jelly fish floating about under the wharf and some of them looked a bit worse for ware. From here we went up to the Point to have a bit of a whale watch and weren’t disappointed they were nearly as common as seagulls which was great to see and they also put on a good show.As you can see though the phone camera ain’t the best for long-range shots.

By this time we where pretty keen to go and get a rod in the water so we headed out to the mouth of Nelson Creek it is a beautiful spot and generally fishes pretty well but not this time unfortunately we didn’t even get a bite from a toad fish. So I decided to get the drone out and have a play

As you can see its a great spot even better when there is no clouds.  Something I have always wanted to do since I have had the drone was film a whale and it wasn’t until we got home and I went through the footage that I found that I had in fact filmed one so I was pretty happy, even though it’s not the best as it is zoomed into the max you can still make it all out

Next time I get the chance I will get a better shot.

So after our hopeless fishing expedition we decided to head back to camp and relax with a few beers for the afternoon, I went for a quick swim and the water was surprisingly good and Jacinta decided to read her book.It is a fantastic book by the way to haha.

The next day we were up early again as it was our last day here and we wanted to fit in as much as possible. First off we went out to Wallagoot Lake I can remember fishing this lake as a kid and the variety of fish you could get out of here was unbelievable everything from Snapper and flathead right down to the less common Latchet Gurnard,  unfortunately the mouth silted up about 15-20 year ago and the commercial fisherman kept fishing until there was nothing left.  The good thing is the mouth has been open due to the bad weather this winter so hopefully it will help rejuvenate fish stocks.  As I thought I would never see the mouth open again in my lifetime I decided of course to get the drone up and get some footage of it.

From here we ventured around to the other side of the lake and checked out a couple of things that I can never remember going to

and on the way seen a friendly snake. After seeing him we where a lot more cautious of where we walked

Not far From the Snake is Scotts Hut I’m not sure what this may have been used for but it is still in pretty good condition,

From here we went further around on the track and found a research outpost for parks and wildlife once again I’m not entirely sure what it is used for but it is a pretty well set up camp that seems like it may house a few people from time to time

Main Hut

Sleeping areas (I think), there are about 5 of these in the bush and they are relatively large too.

After having a poke around the Wallagoot lake area we decided to go and have a look at the bird Avery on the outskirts of Tathra called On The Perch and to our surprise it was fantastic. Although only small at the moment it has a lot of variety and is also very hands on. The owner is also very informative and passionate about his birds Friendly Princess Parrot Evil looking curlew nesting.  The variety of birds here was quite surprising it had everything from the exotic African Parrots and Australian parrots right down to the common chook which the kids seemed to love as they were very hands on especially if food was involved.

After this we went to try our luck fishing again but again failed miserably so we went back to camp to relax for the rest of the afternoon as we had a long gruelling 8 hour drive back to Rochester to catch up with the rest of the family before we headed back to Tassie.  That concludes our mainland Trip of 2016 hope you enjoyed.

Cheers