Breakaway Cruises the Myall Lakes

Myall Lakes – 20th Sep. to 3rd Oct. 2003

It was 3:30am and I was listening to the endless stream of semi’s roaring past the truck stop that we had pulled into soon after midnight. There was still a long drive tomorrow to get to the Myall Lakes and I badly needed some sleep. Leaving on Friday afternoon had not been one of my better ideas. But it had been a bad week at work and I was intent on leaving town as soon as possible. Back in Melbourne a 4pm departure had quickly become 7pm so we weren't far into NSW by midnight. So at 3:30am I braced myself (it was extremely cold) and woke up Lyn to suggest that we move on to somewhere quiet so I could get some sleep. Out of the boat, back in the car and another hour found us in a side street of Holbrook near the big wheat silos.
Ice on the deck in the morning seemed to confirm the bad start to our holiday, but as we climbed down from the boat a friendly voice from across  the road invited us over for a cup of tea. Our holiday was happy again, thanks to Geoff the timber mill worker and his friends (we dropped in a postcard on our way back).
After a long drive via Sydney (yuk … there must be a better way through *update* - there is now a much better way ... the M7 and M2 tollways) we stocked up at a Safeway in Raymond Terrace then travelled the last 80km to Nerong, our launching place, where we again slept in the boat on the trailer after a late counter meal at the Buladelah (Bull-a-deel-a) pub 10k up the highway.

Nerong is a small holiday community with no shops, no drinking water available and one public toilet (not suitable for emptying portable toilets) which has a good ramp in a sheltered boat harbour. It also seems to be a safe place to leave the car as there are quite a number of permanent residents in houses close by.

We could also leave the boat tied up safely at the wharf when we later needed to drive for supplies or pick up a friend from Newcastle. Nerong is at the end of a winding arm, off the bottom lake of the Myall Lakes system. Almost anywhere on this arm (or very wide creek) would be a comfortable anchorage if you launched late in the day although you would probably stay tied up in Nerong. Travelling across the shallow lake in the evening would not be a smart idea unless you were very familiar with the place. However, taking a left turn a few hundred metres into this lake will put you in the protected and spacious lagoon outlet of the Myall River, which is where we spent our first night. A very pretty and peaceful place to wake up to in the morning. The bush all around the lakes is lush and very interesting with plenty of bird life. The same pair of ducks that joined us at every anchorage on the Hawkesbury last year once again found us on the Myall. Clever ducks!
A nice sail across the bottom lake, Bombah Broadwater (take care with all marks as they change direction half way across … and there is no tide to get you off if you really get stuck), took us to Mungo Brush where we anchored 5 metres from shore and then walked for 15 minutes across to the spectacular ocean beach. The warm north-westerly wind came up quickly and made our departure from Mungo Brush interesting. Always watch for the many trees that overhang the lake edges … if you want to keep your rig! Rather than head north to the main lakes of the system and into the wind, we decided to head down the river that connects the lake system to the sea at Tea Gardens on Port Stephens. The 3 hour trip at 5 knots was fascinating with amazing plant and bird life, and prawn fishermen’s shacks to add a hillbilly feel. The river is well marked, particularly through the beautiful lagoons, but keep to the outside of the bends for depth. At dusk we tied up at at the Tea Gardens public wharf, just over the road from the dive shop and a few doors down from the pub (meals are so-so). A couple of g&t’s made the thick phosporesence swirling past the boat take on a galaxy-like appearance. Don’t forget the effects of the tide when you tie up here! Tea Gardens does not have a supermarket but you can stock up with booze, ice and fuel. The 3 hour motor back up to the lakes was just as interesting as the trip down.

Our 13 days on the beautiful Myall Lakes was blissful with few other boats or people to be seen even though the second week was school holidays in NSW. The water is clear in the northern lakes and great for swimming. It tastes fresh but you are advised not to drink it. Pump out and porta-potty emptying facilities are very good on the floating jetty at Bombah Point. There is also a pump out barge that apparently does the rounds but we only saw it once. The Myall Shores ‘resort’ at Bombah Point is the only place on the lakes that you can get fuel, water, and a very limited range of supplies. The brownish bore water soon clogged up our filter but it tasted ok.

There are plenty of sheltered anchorages particularly in the two smaller (Two Mile and Boolambayte) lakes that connect the two large top and bottom lakes. The top lake, Myall Lake, is the best one for sailing and has quite a few small sandy beaches (Tickerabit and Kataway). It was in the two smaller lakes that we had two startling experiences, one of them not so good.
Relaxing in the warmth of a beautiful twilight and a nice gin and tonic, with the gentle sound of a Nora Jones CD in the background, both Lyn and I noticed that the boat seemed to be floating about 10 metres above the water. Yep, we thought it was a bit strange too but the more we looked over the side the more we got a feeling of vertigo … it was a long way down! While we were floating far above the water I even had time to text a bemused son back in Melbourne. We attempted without success to replicate this phenomenon on other similarly perfect nights with the help of plenty of g&t’s but it must have been a combination of the slight ripples on the water and the reflection of the unusual evening sky texture and the silhouette of the nearby hills. Weird!

One morning following a nice swim off the sandy beach on the south side of Bombah  Point we motored around to the north side to the pump out jetty. Thunderstorms were forecast and the sky was looking very ominous as we were getting ready to leave the jetty. A roaring in the trees in the surrounding hills got us moving fast and our stern had just cleared the corner of the jetty when an incredibly strong onshore northerly hits us. Full throttle gradually clawed us away from shore as the wind strength increased. The top layer of the lake upwind was torn off and flung at us. The blast of wind and water in my face almost stopped me breathing. Looking back I saw waves breaking over the jetty where we had been a few minutes earlier on calm waters. These waves built in minutes over a stretch of less than a kilometre. I was sure the boat would have been stuck against this jetty and severely damaged if we hadn’t left when we did. Even though the boat was only making a knot or so against the wind, we soon ran out of water and had to turn around to run with it. As soon as the bow veered off the wind we were thrown onto our side which further alarmed the crew who had retreated below decks. Luckily the extreme wind strength abbated before we again ran out of water in the other direction. A nearby mooring seemed like a good idea but the wind and the flash and crash of lightning close by made picking it up extremely difficult and frightening. I was already so wet and cold that diving under the boat to untangle the mooring rope from the keel made little difference. Very alarming!
We found the Myall Lakes to be a much friendlier place than the Hawkesbury. The people we met at Nerong, Violet Hill and elswhere were very helpful and keen to talk. While a Magnum is a small boat on the Hawkesbury, it is a big one on the Myall (apart from a few houseboats that is). There are some very nice walks such as Tamboy to Mungo Brush and the ocean, and south-east from Kataway Bay.

Other places to launch include:
• Bombah Point – ramp quality is unknown and is exposed to the south and east. Not sure about the possibility or cost of car/trailer parking. It would be safe though.
• Violet Hill – ramp seems ok (saw a Castle 650 from Queenscliff launch there) with a couple of small jetties and a few moorings around the corner. It is reasonably sheltered but costs $6.50 per night to park (there are toilets) unless a $20 season ticket is obtained from a NSW Parks office (not sure where). Violet Hill is a fairly remote campsite which could influence car security either way. The fireflies at dusk were amazing to see!
• Tea Gardens – good ramp but a long way to come back to if you need your car, unlike Nerong and the other two mentioned above which are pretty close to the centre of the lake system.

Some good web links include:
• A good story - http://users.hunterlink.net.au/~madms/lakes.html
• Some details - http://users.hunterlink.net.au/~madms/boat.html (a bit dated eg. there is no water available at Violet Hill)
• Maps that you can zoom in for lots of detail:

http://www.waterways.nsw.gov.au/docs/maps/myallake_back.pdf

http://www.waterways.nsw.gov.au/docs/maps/myallriv_front.pdf

For about $5 BoatBooks (02 9439 1133) in Sydney will post the NSW Waterways map which includes depth contours and all marks.