6th Dec – Beatu Bay

Morning of the ducks..... if you have ever been up close and personal with a duck they are quite nosey & noisy, especially at breakfast! This morning 7 ducks decided to join us for toast, of course we didn’t feed them as we all know bread is not good for our birdlife. We were on the road by 8am and off to Beatu Bay on the north coast, our trip took us across near to Sydney and onto the M1 north towards Gosford and the world’s 4^th largest Motor museum which housed 400 cars! We continued via the mountains where the road was carved into the sandstone and across Ku-ring-gai River Bridge. Closer to Gosford we began to hear a strange sound, like a clicking harmony, when we slowed we realised it was the Cicadas, billions of them all clicking their tymbal hundreds of times a second to create a wave like harmony across the forest! As we continued their harmony would drown the music we were playing in the car. We arrived to Beatu bay to find the sun shining and wind blowing from the south, there had been a low pressure system off the south coast which has been making the weather unpredictable to say the least. After a walk along the beach we hit the pool and from nowhere a cloud came across the hill behind the beach, as we placed our towels down under the umbrella came a huge deluge, raindrops as big as ping pong balls and icy cold, luckily for us the pool was heated! This occurred multiple times over the next few hours as we relaxed. Once the sky cleared near sunset we set off on another beach walk as it was now low tide. The sky looking spectacular we cooked dinner outside and listened to the roar of the ocean and harmony of the cicada in the forrest behind our camper. Bed time found us again listening to the sound of pouring rain on the camper roof; apparently tomorrow the weather is forecast to be fine....let’s see!