It's very hard to find words to begin to describe Palm beach...
 |
| Palm beach |
Situated a good 50km outside Sydney's CBD and famous for it's other name of
'Summer Bay', Palm beach is the filming location for Australian TV
drama, Home and Away. We were recently surprised to arrive there on a
filming day whilst visiting with a friend from home. I can't say I was
familiar with the actors there but the surrounding hype was great fun.
My friend was even able to score a couple of pictures with the Aussie
actors!
Filming aside, Palm beach itself is our favorite beach of NSW to date
(we have yet to discover Byron). The surrounding high hills and cliffs
are famous for their distinct excess of wealth but the general vibe is
definitely not pretentious.
 |
| Barrenjoey bay |
We've been really fortunate to enjoy lunch
with some great friends of ours at The Boathouse, a restaurant built on a
pier overlooking Barrenjoey bay, the calmer side of the Palm beach
peninsular. The boys annihilated beef and steak burgers (in anticipation
of the evening's fishing and rugby antics) while the ladies opted for
delicious frittatas, which we all washed down with massive freshly
cooked prawns. We felt very lucky indeed!
A short ferry trip from Palm beach can land you at a small national reserve called The Basin. Essentially, The Basin is a naturally protected bay come lake with a very narrow inlet which has been shark-proofed so it's a nice safe spot to swim, fish and paddle board - all at once, if desired...
Families flock to The Basin in the holidays but we've been fortunate to miss the bustle on both the occasions we've been.
 |
| The basin, complete with strange clothing choices? |
The second time we visited was to camp over night with friends. The park has BBQ and amenities and a big open fire pit that we sat around, whilst playing Articulate. It's very entertaining waking up amongst the possums and wallabies and I will never forget the sleepy morning encounter I had with a resident wallaby which entailed a near collision between the two of us, resulting in one stunned-awake looking wallaby and a shocked tooth-brush-in-mouthed human eying each other reproachfully. I would like to think my eyes blink rather more coordinately in the morning than his as he just looked silly. Hallelujah to coffee?
South of Palm beach is Whale beach, great for surfing. There's a great breakfast place there called (very originally) Whaleys, which does a mean 'Green Breakfast' of poached eggs, broccolini, spinach, ricotta and home-made pesto on sough dough bread. Need I say anymore?
It was here at Whaleys, having consumed this champion brunch that Luke caught his first wave on his new board. We were all very impressed! I think we'll always have fond memories of our trips to Palm beach and surrounding areas. Who knows, maybe one day we'll be one of the lucky rich buggars who own a property up there? Roll on Euro Millions!!
No comments:
Post a Comment