16 June 2024 – Urunga to Hat Head NP

Having a kitchen I decided to make crepes for breakfast …so that was different and lovely !

I headed to the wetlands as a first stop – for a short walk around . I learned that this was actually an old mine processing site which was not well rehabilitated at all and caused metal leaching into the soil. There are engineered cells that are containing the soil that can’t be rehabbed , but it looks rather successful !

My next stop… or drive really… was to and around Yarriabini NP. Did a short walk at the picnic area – through the rainforests. I learned that a wasp actually pollinated the strangler fig flowers ! It is the only species that pollinates these figs!

A further, steepish, drive up to the lookout was rewarded with a superb, clear view of Stuart’s head and some mangroves… even from this distance you could see the crashes of whales breaching !!

I stopped by in Kempsey to refuel … as I had seen a station here with fuel for 183c per liter … whereas many of what I had passed was 206c!!!

Made my way through the slow windy roads along the MacLeay River again…just today with beautiful sunny weather unlike yesterday and headed to my camping spot for the night in Hat Head NP- Hungry Gate.

After I set up camp, I drive the 1.2km to a parking area in Kemps Corner- to start Connors track. It was about 2pm.

The walk started out with a nice wide path and then got pretty overgrown and narrow! I was thanking my lucky starts that it wasn’t summer as snakes would have been a large concern in those tall grasses/ bushes and not seeing too much of the path!

The whales were great though- and pretty distracting from the walk! Several were quiet far away in the distance- but a few delighted me with their breaching- multiple times even! Great fun to watch them.

As I headed in to camp – it was just 3 of us camped out for the night. I went over after dinner to say good day to Ian. He had a fire going and I found out he was going to go start his lap around Australia in august- when his superannuation / pension came in.