Harrington

Today was one of the most scenic drives we have ever had. At times it reminded us of parts of Canada with lovely scenery everywhere we looked. More on this later….
The direct route to our Mount Nellinda free camp was mainly along the Pacific Motorway. This is a good wide twin lane road that is designed to get from A to B quickly and deviates past many of the towns and scenic sights. So today we decided (as we often do) to takes roads for much of the way that are off the main highway. This will be clearly shown in the track route map of this travel blog.
Our son David had recommended a small diversion to the Coopernook Hotel, and that was our first stop with a plan to have coffee and perhaps a light breakfast. But when we arrived they told us the coffee machine was broken and food was not available for another couple of hours - crashed and burned! So we headed off the highway again towards the coast to a place called Harrington for an açai bowl and a cappu. We had never been here before and enjoyed the lovely waterway scenery. Carolina even found some totem poles!
We then decided to take The Lakes Way road. This is one of the tourist routes and turned out to be a fantastic drive! It took us down through Forster which is a very picturesque town, and then the magnificent Lake Wallis. The weather was sunny and beautiful. Large waterway views everywhere separated by spectacular forest drives. The highlight looked as if it would be the narrow strip of land near Tiona which is so narrow that water is only 50m or so either side of the road with Lake Wallis on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other side. However surprisingly glimpses only of the water was possible because of the foreshore bush on either side that hid most of the water, which was a bit disappointing. We passed the Tiona Holiday Park along this strip of land which looked like a lovely camping ground for future reference.
The Lakes Way then took us up and over a number of beautiful mountain ridges with great rainforest scenery until the road finished when it rejoined the Pacific Motorway. This has been a very worthwhile and spectacular drive through some of the nicest scenery we have ever seen.
Then it was on past Newcastle until just before Cooranbong we left the highway towards our Mount Nellinda free camp. Located on a large 19 hectare property there were numerous nice camping sites available. It was becoming overcast with rain threatening so we nestled down and cooked a fish dinner in the van. This had been a very nice day.Read more