Sunday 22 September 2013 – The Jervis Bay area

We had a sleep in this morning, not waking till around eight o’clock.  And we had only sat talking and having a first cuppa before breakfast when Marg’s daughter Deidre and the two girls Charlotte and Zoe arrived.  They were on their way around to feed a friends chooks, and called past to see if there was any sign of life here.  It was lovely to see them, and the kids (Charlotte is 5 and Zoe is 3) are real cuties and very friendly.  They probably stayed for a bit over an hour, so after they left Grant and I had our brekky (Marg had been up at 6.30 and had already had hers), then I had my shower and we decided to go out for a drive and explore the district.

We went with Marg in her car which was really good as she knew the best places to take us.  She showed us where she works, then we drove to just outside Huskisson which is ten km away.  There we parked and walked along the walking path into town – probably taking us about 25 minutes, then wandered around the shopping strip before going to the bakery where we had an early lunch.  We sat at an outside table and it was beautiful in the sunshine.

Dawn and Marg

After we’d eaten (and talked some more) we walked back to the car via the beach, so it was another good walk.  From there Marg took us to several little bays, obviously all very popular as there were people on every beach.  One of them was Iluka Beach and as we drove up the gravel road to the carpark there was quite a large snake lying half way across our lane of the road, with its tail curled round on the side of the road.  We stopped while grant took a photo of it.  We think it was a diamond backed python and it was probably about a metre or so long.  It didn’t move, so we drove around it, but when we came back a few minutes later it was curled up on the edge of the gravel.

Snake! 

This is an extremely pretty area, water in and out into bays, inlets and rivers, so that there would be a sheltered spot whichever way the wind was blowing.  But today was very calm and they were all pretty inviting.

Then we went to the Booderee National Park which borders on Jervis Bay, and went again to several local favourite spots before going to the Cape St George lighthouse which was built in 1860.  Controversy followed the decision about the approval of this lighthouse from 1856 due to incomplete and faulty planning, bad positioning and questions about its effectiveness. The resulting light was not visible from the northern approach to Jervis Bay, and was barely visible from the southern approach. When inspected by members of the Pilots Board it was found that on top of the inaccuracies, the contractor built the light 2.5 miles (4.0 km) north of the intended site, as it was closer to the quarry he was obtaining the stone from!

From 1864 to 1893 there were twenty three ships wrecked on the South Coast of New South Wales in the vicinity of Jervis Bay. The light was eventually replaced in 1899 by Point Perpendicular Light in Point Perpendicular, a much more suitable location for a lighthouse on this part of the coast.  After the commissioning of the new light, it was considered that the confusion of having two towers in close proximity to one another would be a hazardous to navigation in daylight, especially during foul weather. As a result, the Cape St George Tower was unceremoniously used from 1917 to 1922 for target practice by the Royal Australian Navy and destroyed.

Ruins of the lighthouse

While we were up at the lookout adjacent to the remains of the lighthouse we saw several whales frolicking out from the cliffs, and also a couple of dolphins. And as we walked back along the path to the carpark again there was a big blue-tongue lizard in the middle of the path (another photo) and we also saw a wallaby, so this was our ‘spotto some wildlife’ day.

So all up we had a great day and saw the best parts of this area.  Back at Margaret’s by about 4.30pm we enjoyed some cuppas, and then we’ve just relaxed for the rest of the day.   This is certainly a lovely part of the world.