Australia Day is the official national day of Australia. I spent my first ever Australia Day in Perth and let’s just say, it involved a lot of drinking along the shores of the Swan River. Since I was in Sydney on the second Australia I enjoyed in this beautiful country, Liam, his cousin Liz, her boyfriend Dan and me decided to book a little house up the coast to enjoy some time away from the city.
The criteria for our “home away from home” for the weekend was pretty simple: It had to have a pool, it had to be our own place, it had to be close to the beach and it couldn’t be too expensive. With the trip just under two weeks away by the time we booked, there was literally only one place on Airbnb that ticked all of these boxes. In fairness, this place couldn’t have been much more perfect though: It was beautiful and cosy inside, it had a little pool and an outside area with barbecue, and it was only 120 metres away from the beach. After a massive shop in the nearby Umina, we moved into our new little home for the weekend.
Pearl Beach is truly a gem: A quiet and peaceful neighbourhood with a beautiful, large beach and a café and convenience shop along the beachfront, it’s merely an hour away from Sydney. We spent the first day chilling in the house while having a barbecue (what else?). The weather was a bit unsteady but we were thankful for the rain, which washed away a bit of the humidity. These days anyway, I’m just glad as long as there’s no smoke or fire nearby.
The next day, the sky was bright blue so we headed for a little hike. The 3-km walk from Patonga to Pearl Beach is part of the Great North Walk and it starts at the boat ramp of nearby Patonga, another little beach community featuring a fantastic-looking pub. Many people were picnicking along the beachfront as we passed by – just what many families do on Australia Day.
It was a true scorcher as we went along the beach and into the forest, thankful for some shade. After a long, steep ascent through the forest, I was sweating as if I’d just had a shower – but the views were truly worth it. We could see all across the ocean, the lush, green hills and Patonga Beach on the right.
After just under an hour, we arrived back at Pearl Beach and jumped right into the sea while Liam organised some beers and snacks for us from back at the house.
When we got back home, it was so hot that we made excessive use of the pool for the rest of the day while we had some beers and slowly started to get the barbecue going. We had learnt our lesson from the night before and got the mosquito burner going early on while using lots of insect repellent at the same time. I still had around twenty bites as souvenirs by the time we got home.
On the way back to Sydney, Liam and I swung past Avoca Beach, just twenty minutes further north from Pearl Beach. It was very busy so we didn’t stay at the beach for too long but set out to explore the rocks on the north end of the long stretch of sand. It turned out that it was a popular fishing spot: There was a long line of anglers along the rocks, pulling one large tuna after the next out of the water. A bunch of pelicans was lingering around, hoping to pick up some leftovers. The pelicans didn’t seem all too shy and it was a very remarkable scene to get to see these large birds so close by.
We staid for quite a while before we sampled the most delicious and massive fish and chips platter at Terrigal Beach Fish & Chip Co. and hit the road.
PS: If you wonder why there are so few pictures from beautiful Pearl Beach – the ones I took with my camera mysteriously vanished from the latter so I could only use those that I captured with my phone 🙁
