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One of the good things about the power coming back on last night: we could make coffee in the room. All the hotels (and many of the campgrounds) we’ve visited have coffee, but it’s instant. Good for the caffeine fix, but less satisfying taste and texture wise. Still, the sun was shining and the coffee along with breakfast of yogurt and granola got us going. I put the tent out in the sunshine for one last drying session, and we repacked everything that was scattered around the room — all fully dry now.

It was nice to get on the bike and not worry only about getting sunburnt, not wet. The ride through the Myall Lakes National Park and Mungo Brush was very pleasant, warm, and dry. On leaving the park to our lunch stop at Bungwahl, the roads threw some climbs at us, but minor ones compared to the previous couple of days. We also crossed some strips of land between the lakes and the ocean that were only 300m (1,000 feet) wide. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see the water on either side because of the trees and other vegetation. We arrived in the small town of Forster, stopped at a store and replenished our wine supply, then headed for the campground.

There were two campgrounds right next to each other with “Holiday” in the name, so of course we picked the wrong one. After twenty minutes of tooling around, we realized our mistake and headed 20m up the road to Lani’s Holiday Park (or Lani’s Holiday Island, depending on which source you reference). We pitched our tent in the empty tent area, but were soon surrounded by multiple camper vehicles and just regular old pickup trucks. Given the crowding and the chance for a soaking dew that night, we moved the tent up to the nearby pavilion/kitchen. None of the other campers needed the facilities, so we got more quiet and more privacy with the news. A campground employee did come around to close the kitchen at 8, but saw that we were in the middle of cooking our dinner and left with our promise to close the doors when we were done. All-in-all, a good day.

Leaving the Tea Garden Hotel
A VW truck — not available in the US
nor this Toyata van
nor this MG SUV
Hawk’s Nest Koala area
The gravel road through Mungo Brush
The gravel road through Mungo Brush
Warnings in the national park
A Lace Monitor sauntering in front of us
About 2 meters (6′) long
The South Pacific
The South Pacific from mungo Beach. The next landmass directly east from here is Chile, just 8,000 miles away!
Road decor on Sand Rocks Rd, Myall Lakes National Park
Our home for the evening
Our tent’s original location
Twilight at Lani’s
Relocated to stay dry
Lani’s camp kitchen!