Port Hacking

Port Hacking lies on the southern fringe of Sydney, only 30 km from the city centre. With the spectacular Royal National Park bordering the southern shoreline and the surfing beaches of Cronulla to the north, it is a relatively clean and unspoilt waterway. We arrived after an uneventful passage from Wollongong, motoring most of the way as the winds were very light. Although we could see the forecast rain in the distance, fortunately it didn’t eventuate over us.

Jibbon Beach, our destination, was packed full of boats of all sizes, with locals enjoying the lovely sunny Sunday afternoon and calm waters. We dropped anchor for a couple of hours and enjoyed chilling in the cockpit. Matt was really missing his hammock in this perfect hammock weather!

After a couple of hours we were able to snaffle a mooring, one of only two public moorings at the beach. We much prefer the certainty and peace of mind of being securely tied onto a mooring rather than swinging off the anchor, and as we wanted to get off and explore the area over the next few days, we felt quite relieved at being able to jump onto the mooring.

The Royal National Park, which was established in 1879, is the second oldest national park in the world. It covers 15,000 hectares and the iconic Coast Track extends for 28 kilometres along its coastline. Whilst I would have loved to hike the entire track and explore all the numerous little beaches, waterfalls and secluded swimming holes along the way, unfortunately the camping grounds were all closed, and the tracks either too sandy or rocky for the bikes, so we were restricted to walking just the closest parts of the trail. Still, the coastline that we walked along was magnificent, with some pretty amazing views from the clifftops and we went as far as Wedding Cake Rock. Hiking the full Coast Track is most definitely on my bucket list now!

On another day we caught the ferry from the nearby village of Bundeena over to Cronulla. Matt was quite excited about his first ferry ride, and it was a really quaint old ferry that carried us on the twenty minute journey across the waterway. Well, now we really were in Sydney. Conveniently, there is a train station just a short walk from the ferry wharf, so using our Opal cards that we’d saved from a previous trip in NSW we jumped on a train. So easy!

We journeyed all of two stops to Caringbah, and then walked a couple of kilometres into the industrial area. We were here to visit Bunnings in order to purchase a hose and attachment for the high pressure pump on the desalinator, so that we can more easily and efficiently clean the outside of the yacht. That part was simple and Bunnings had what Matt was looking for. Harder to find was the correct adaptor that we needed, and we trooped all over the place following leads and searching for the elusive part. After a lovely tour of the industrial streets of Caringbah, we finally had success, as well as most definitely notching up our exercise for the day.

A pitstop at Cronulla Beach on the way back did not inspire the desire for a swim. The entire Cronulla beachfront area had ‘Exercise Only’ signs all over the beaches and grassy areas, so we couldn’t even just sit down either and with more walking not really high up on my agenda, we hightailed it back to the ferry and across to our quiet little beach.

Another day, Matt went spearfishing at gorgeous Shelley Beach, only a very short walk from our anchorage, while I enjoyed practising yoga in the serenity of the isolated beach. While Matt was successful in his spearfishing endeavour I’m not going to record too much more about the details here ……. take from that what you will!

I met an echidna on one of my walks and spent about half an hour watching him. Echidnas are very timid creatures, and notoriously difficult to photograph. This little guy was shy and startled very easily, but clearly wanted to be on the move. So he’d poke his head out, take a few steps and if I remained completely still he would cautiously edge out and onto the path. If I moved to try and take a photo, or as happened once, another person ran past, he’d scuttle back into the bushes and curl up. He’d wait there a few minutes and then slowly venture out again. I watched him go back and forth a number of times, before I decided I should leave him in peace to go on his way.

Matt took some more night photos, taking the tender over to Jibbon Beach and Jibbon Head late one evening.

We were also lucky enough to experience some gorgeous coloured skies during the evenings. Yep, here come some more sunset photos!

We really enjoyed our short stay here, just three days, and the only real downfall were the mosquitoes that came out as soon as dusk fell. Our new bug zapper seems to be no match for them, and I am covered in mozzie bites. We are looking forward to moving on up into Sydney and hopefully catching up with some friends….. in a proper social distancing manner, of course!

I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.

Jimmy Dean