Old Bar

Friday the 13th November (nothing to be frightened of about that, ‘……you ain’t afraid if you are washed in the blood like I was….’ and am – Words from Don Williams and his song ‘Good Ole Boys like Me’) and we left the Central Coast and headed for Old Bar. We had a nice trip and stopped for coffee at a rest stop. I was having trouble with my blue tooth connecting with my phone so it was good to sort that out there.

We have never been to Old Bar before so that qualified for a visit for this trip. Took the turn off near Taree and drove in there to find a nice little town with all you need. Two Thai restaurants, one Chinese, butcher, baker, Coles, pub and more. Even a Vinnies which I was glad to see as Linda has forgotten to bring her swimmers. For me that would be a no brainer, go to Vinnies and get swimmers. As many times as I dropped the hint Linda would not have a bar of it, downright refused.Go figure!

Pulled into the van park there and got set up. It is beautifully grassed there and we had a bit of an outlook so we were happy.

We walked down to the beach which is right there next to the van park. Not a great beach but good to cool off on a hot day and great proximity to the van park. We then drove back into town to shop for some food. Could have walked it was so close but we had a fair bit to carry with all the shopping, except for swimmers of course. Then came back to camp to relax. Good to be spending money in the country towns. This is our beach where the van park is.

We checked the weather report as you do and saw that we might be in for a storm by about 5.30pm or so. I therefore put the BBQ on early to cook dinner. When I put the barbie on the weather did not look to bad but within minutes we could see a build up coming pretty quickly from the south. That build up became ominous as you will see from these photos.

My iphone photos probably do a better job and hopefully this video plays.

We wound up getting some heavy rain and lightning and small hail. The worst part of the storm went around us fortunately. I am so glad that I was able to finally fix my leaking four seasons in the roof. Oh and by the way I got the food on the BBQ cooked just in time.

After a couple of smaller storms overnight with heavy rain we woke up to a beautiful sunny morning. As I had the BBQ already setup it made sense to do a cookup of some of the local bacon we bought the previous day. So we had a great bacon and egg breakfast. But a big breakfast called for a good walk. There was a good road and track next to the park which was about 2km so we headed out along it. At the end of the track was a great disused park with a boat ramp. It would have made a great free camp but camping is forbidden there.

The waterway there is all part of the Manning River. This part of the river used to drain out to the ocean at what they call Farquar Park but it is now fully silted up. There are plans to relocate the sand to save the beach.

This shot shows the ocean on one side and the lake on the other. It is a lot further up where the river ran into the ocean.

There must have been a lot of sand taken away by the wave action because it is such a steep drop to the beach. Big storms occurred much earlier this year right up the coast.

After our walk we took a drive down south to Wallabi Point where there is beach on both sides of the point.

It is a nice spot, the nicer beach being on the southern side which had a small lake behind the beach.

We then drove up north from Old Bar to Manning Point. Such a beautiful waterway with the Manning River running out to the ocean. If you were a boatie it would be a great spot.

So that ended our time at Old Bar. It was a good spot and glad to visit. It probably was not a destination I would bother going to regularly for a holiday.