CENTRAL COAST – Forresters Beach to Shelly Beach – 17 December 2017
Ordinarily, a 2.5 hour walk wouldn’t be blog-worthy, but it was “king” tide and at one sketchy spot, Trish commented that even a 2.5 hour walk with me turns into an adventure, so we decided that it was indeed blog-worthy!
I had planned on going away for the weekend, but my 93yr old dad had a fall and broke his hip and ended up in surgery and hospitalised, so I stayed home. By Sunday when everything seemed back on track, Trish M suggested an early morning walk “just to get out”. Brad M joined us.
Most of you know that I don’t usually get out of bed for a day walk, let alone getting up for a 7.30am start of a 2.5 hour walk, but Forresters Beach to Shelly isn’t just a day walk, it’s a full body work-out with all the rock hopping / scrambling. When we arrived, I noted that it was high tide and think I commented, “it will be ok – but interesting”, didn’t realise it was a “king tide”. Here are some of the shots. We were all stuffed by the time we finished.
Didn’t take any photos at the start cause I didn’t think blog-worthy, this one was taken to show Johan where I was walking this morning (he’s always sending me photos of his walks in the mountains)!
At low tide, this walk features a lot of these lovely rock slabs, on today’s walk though, they were all covered with water.
It was around about now that Trish decided this was a blog-worthy trip. There were a few spots we’d passed where we almost got wet.
Brad decided that up high was the better route in some places.
Keeping our feet dry was the challenge for the day.
Some quick moves were necessary to avoid the waves, we were in no danger of being swept out, just in danger of getting wet. As it turned out, I was the only one that got drenched.
Almost at the end, this is a small cove of pebbles, the sound of the waves retreating after breaking on the beach was magical.
More rock hopping (with arm movements). One of the great things about this walk is that you don’t see another soul. We had the place to ourselves, you could go skinny dipping in the rock pools (at low tide) but there is a cliff walk above and people do look down at the rocks.
Approaching Bateau Bay beach, this lagoon is actually at the back of the rocks and is a great place for kids at low tide, you can just see the rock shelf in the background that you can usually walk on, but you get wet feet trying to get to the beach, we still wanted to stay dry at this point.
Our reward, a quick swim at Bateau Bay, we were really hot and sweaty and had another half hour of walking ahead of us before our coffee at Shelly Beach. This is a great beach, unpatrolled, but quite safe, there were only half a dozen other people on the beach, mind you it was still only 9.30 and it had been an overcast morning.
Thanks Trish for suggesting the walk, and Brad for accompanying us! Great way to stay fit.
Always an adventure. Hope yoir dad improves soon.
Yes Trish it is. He seems to be making huge improvements compared to Saturday!
Looks a bit wetter than when we did the same trip last year!
Yes, tide was considerably up! some spots we had to go right to the face of the cliff to avoid the breaking waves. Was really good though!
Thank you another excellent report. Hope your dad is Ok, we have friends with a dad the same age he has had similar falls. Don’t forget I can walk.
Yes, Roy, will include you in the loop next time, usually they’re short notice but that shouldn’t be a problem for you. Yes, also hoping he’s ok.