Bathurst Harbour Day 3A

Forest Lagoon to Bramble Cove: The morning leg to Balmoral Beach

We woke on day 3 to improved weather conditions, with blue skies and calmer conditions producing lovely reflections of Mt Rugby in Forest Lagoon. 

Our plan was to take advantage of the good conditions and head out towards Port Davey, and so our first tasks for the day were to load all our gear into the kayaks, have our warm-up and decamp from the “civilisation” of our standing camp. Before too long we were out in Bathurst Harbour itself, a vast body of water that is at least twice the size of Sydney Harbour (depending on which bits you measure!).

As we made our way towards the Narrows we were treated to the sight of a sea eagle up in a tree. He (?) kept watch over us as we approached and we were able to get within 20m or so of the tree.

The area known as the Bathurst Narrows is about 500m wide, and is actually a drowned river valley. However, tidal effects reach into this area, even though it is 12km from Port Davey, and we were fortunate to be heading outwards with the ebbing tide.

We took a little detour into Starvation Bay, where we saw a juvenile sea eagle in flight, and where some of us baulked at landing after seeing Tory doing battle with — and nearly losing her Crocs in — the rather squelchy mud along the shore line.

At the narrowest point only 250m separates the two points the jut out from either side. It is here that the Port Davey walking track crosses, and there are boats on either side to help people cross. The conditions need to be good to do so; Tory told the story of a recent kayaking trip on which they’d rescued a lone walker who’d managed to get blown off course, and ended up stranded on the shore with no easy way to get himself and his boat back where they belonged. He was very glad to see the kayakers.

The water opens up after the crossing and we enjoyed the vistas as we made our way to Balmoral Beach.

Balmoral Beach is a lovely long beach with fine gravelly sand, and it was nice to stop here for lunch.

It was even warm enough for some people to go swimming, although I didn’t brave the waters on this occasion.

Instead, I took a stroll into the trees behind the beach and was quite surprised to find a bay on the other side, in front of the rather striking Balmoral Hill. It turns out that Balmoral Beach is really more of an isthmus, with the beach side facing into the main bay, and a huge inlet coming in from behind. 

This is the view coming back out of the trees onto Balmoral Beach.