1770

The town of Seventeen Seventy is named for the year that Lt James Cook landed there (he went on to become Captain James Cook).  Several people had recommended we go there so we drove through the small town of Agnes Waters and arrived at the beach front caravan park at 1770.

The park was jam packed and the sites are small so we were lucky that guys from the two sites in front of ours saw our big van and moved their cars for us.  Nevertheless, it was still a very narrow, tricky spot to back into.  Enter Jenny and her magical reversing powers.  I think I’ve mentioned how you always have an audience when you are parking your van and this time was no different.  She drove forward and then backed the van in perfectly, first go.  As Lou was at the rear of the van watching for how far back we could go the couple next door who were sitting at their table watching remarked “That was really well done. What an amazing job!”  We had at least two other people drop by over the next 24 hours to congratulate her as well.  

Sunset at 1770 beach.

Ben was very excited to see that the tent next door was home to a little girl playing on an iPad.  He immediately made friends and they went for a ride on their scooters.  Her name is Maya and she is also an only child and her parents were glad to have a playmate for her too.

We had dinner at the caravan park bistro and Ben ordered nuggets and chips.  Not only did they bring out his meal 5 mins after the adult's meals, they served him the biggest bowl of chips we have ever seen.  It was ridiculous and we ended up filling an enormous takeaway container and giving it to our neighbours (Maya's parents) so the food didn’t go to waste. 

We got up early the next day and went for a walk along the beach.  In addition to stinger warning signs, they have stonefish warnings too, which was nice for a bit of variety but not nice because stonefish can cause you excruciating pain and sometimes death.  The tide was out anyway and the ground underneath was muddy and rocky so we stayed up on the sand.  It really is beautiful to look out over the water there and we followed the walking trail through the bush to a monument to Lt James Cook. 

The James Cook monument.

That afternoon we drove around to Agnes Waters and found a much better beach.  It had surf and was patrolled so we had a swim and Ben did some great boogie boarding.  There is a caravan park right next to the beach and it looked more spacious and nicer than where we were camped.  We made a mental note to stay there next time we come here.  

Ben boogie boarding at Agnes Waters.

Later we drove up to the headland to see the views from above 1770 and out across the ocean.

View from the 1770 headlands.

Ben with the anchor of the ship "Countess Russell' which was wrecked here in 1873.

Maya’s parents, Ruth and Mick told us about a great walk that Maya had loved so we got up early the next day to do it before we packed up to leave.  It is called the ‘Paperbark Walk’ and is through a forest of paperbark trees.  Part of the trail involves hopping across round stumps in the ground and it has a real fairyland feel.  It’s only 400m around a circuit and once we had done it one way Ben insisted we do it in reverse too.  It was really lovely.

The lovely paperbark walk.