Step 12 South West Rocks - Urunga

Thursday 9th December
Headed off bright and early (well, before 10:00 anyway) for Urunga, on the recommendation of local farmer couple we spoke to last night.

Had planned to stop at Nambucca Heads Bowls Club for their $9 lunch special (will we ever get back to our Melbourne lives ?) but on the way through town we spotted the RSL $5 lunch special - be still my beating heart.

As we had arrived a little early for lunch we had a stroll along the boardwalk beside the river and took in the MDV (remember from the previous blog - Million Dollar View, try and keep up people).Anyway, lovely walk, beautiful day all is good in paradise. Rather than follow the path back along the river we took the steps up the hill back to the RSL and along a path that was a little overgrown. As is SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) I let Di walk in front, she's going to tell me where to go anyway so it's easier to follow :-) As we reached the top I noticed that she seemed a little short of breath, must be the hill I thought. Hang on though, that's not short of breath, she's not actually breathing and her hands are flapping around, quite agitatedly. Hang on Sherlock she is trying to tell you something (I thought to myself). Words would help I thought.

AND then I spotted the source of her consternation - a giant monitor sitting (vertically) in the tree, right next to ME. Now when I say giant monitor I don't mean Michael Murray, the rather large milk monitor from grade 3, although he was quite scary in his own right. No, I mean a Monitor lizard, also known as biawak or goannas, genus Varanus, members of the family Varanidae.  Varanus is a group of largely carnivorous lizards    (Copyright - Wikipedia 2010). CARNIVOROUS !! Please excuse me if the following photo is a little blurry !

 Let's put that in perspective - his head is above mine and his tail nearly touching the ground !!!! I think I did remarkably well getting any photo's at all - all in the interests of you, our reading public.


After that it was straight to the bar for a stiff drink, and a quick chat to Di about finding a more  effective way of communicating impending danger. In her defence she did say by the time I saw it it was up a tree whereas it ran across the path right in front of her. Also, she said, there are no recorded monitor related deaths in Australia - on the other hand if you have been eaten by a giant lizard you're not going to be doing much recording are you.


BTW - the $5 lunch special was braised  beef, roast potato and a medley of vegetables - very nice, thanks for asking.


Taking care to leave the RSL via the front door and the paved car park it was back on the road to Urunga (pronounced Oorooonga in case you were wondering). Top marks to the farmers for the recommendation, the caravan park is right on the water and very pleasant.

To top it off the pub is right out the front of the park

Well, it is all very pleasant apart from the re-enactment of Hurricane Katrina that is going on. OK Hurricane might be a bit of a stretch but it was the windiest day I have seen since we left Holland  and as Elke will tell you the wind there was so strong it blew my hair off.


Nonetheless we managed to walk out on the (newly finished) one kilometre long boardwalk to the end of the breakwater to take in the views of the river and surf beach.

The wind continued through the night but we awoke to a beautiful still sunny day and a view out the back of MM that makes this trip  all seem like a good idea

That's my left foot in the photo - not to be confused with the Daniel Day Lewis movie of the same name

At this stage though, with so much to see on this part of the coast, we are experimenting with one night stops, so it is time to pack up and move on