Day 15 - Newnes to Stockton Dunes

Day 15 started out mist with lots of low lying cloud shrouding the mountains around the campground at Newnes. I packed up as soon as my tent and fly had dried out and hit the road. At this stage i still had no plan as to where i was headed. The roads west of the divide with all of their sheep pasture were boring me and i was considering heading back to the coast.
I hit the road and enjoyed the ride out of the National Park through the Wolgan valley and it's picturesque rock faces, stopping now and again for photos

I then climbed the mountain and emerged on the main road at Cullen Bullen. The sig said 13km to Lithgow to the left and a hundred and something km to Mudgee to the right. In a split second decision i headed left and back through the Blue Mountains. going this way meant i'd have to cover 150 odd km of roads that i'd previously ridden so i put the hammer down andtried to cover the ground quickly, it was going to be a big day if i was to make it to the coast tonight.

through Lithgow with a quick stop for groceries and back onto the Bells Line of Road. i stopped here and there for photos at Mt George and Hassans walls which were spectacular but were not in the same league as what i'd encountered the day before in Gardens of Stone NP. Still glad i came back for a look when the weather was nicer though.

I then motored on through Colo and back up the Putty Road. being a Sunday and sunny the putty Road was an endless procession of bikes out enjoying the nice weather. I stopped at the halfway roadhouse and parked among the various, Ducati's and Harley's. my bike covered in 2 weeks worth of mud and dust, with luggage hanging off all over it did look a little out of place.
A quick pie and a energy drink and i was off again. I bypassed Singleton and headed for Broke through some nice back roads and then onto Maitland toward newcastle. i still didn't know where i was going but decided on the fly that camping in the dunes at Stockton would be nice, so i rode on. it turned out to be a big days riding.

I got to Stockton dunes at around 4 pm and cautiously entered the dunes. There was several hundred metres of VERY soft sand to traverse before i hit the dunes. I let some air out of my tyres and paddled my way out there through the many tyre ruts in the soft deep sand. hard work to say the least.

I decided not to go too far, mainly because i was buggered and picked out a depression in the dunes to set up camp. I set up the tent, unloaded a few things and decided to walk down the beack to take a look at the wreck on the beach.

This turned out to be hard work as well. The wreck was a lot further off than it looked and the beach is ridiculously steep and had no hard sand, even by the waters edge. I got there eventually, took a few snaps and headed back. My skinny little calves were burning by the time i got back from the very long walk in the soft sand.

Upon arriving back at my camp the first thing i noticed was that my kitchen bag, cooking utensils and food were scattered around and the top box on my rack was sitting ajar. While i was away, someone had taken it upon themselves to go through my stuff. Much worse was that my jacket was missing. I was extremely pissed off and was ready to explode!
Upon further investigating it appeared that not much was missing other than the jacket. i had my camera with me and my wallet and phone were in my pants pocket so they missed them. they also missed my laptop which was in the tent. I was still cranky about the jacket and sulked as i boiled the billy for a cuppa.
Just on dark i wandered off into the dunes for a look around and couldn't believe my eyes when i spotted my jacket laying in the sand a few dunes away from my camp! In the end it appears that all i'm missing is a pair of sunnies (expensive Oakley sunnies) so all in all it wasn't too bad.

On a brighter note my camp in the dunes was pretty cool.

I got an early night a little nervous that i might get run over in my sleep. i don't know what they do out there but there were 4wd's cruising around the dunes all night.
very close to home now but i'll try and strech it out a little longer. I've never been to Seal rocks so will probably go there tomorrow night. it would also be nice to cross the mountains one more time so i might find a way to do that and come back through Walcha