Kylie’s Beach – with a permit you can drive on the beach, all the way to Crowdy Head which is about 12km down the beach.

We managed to avoid the Pacific Highway altogether today by following a mix of minor surfaced and unsurfaced tracks down the coast. On the way we passed through the Crowdy Bay National Park to have a look at Kylie’s Beach as a possible stop for the night.
We’d hoped to walk one of the trails in the park that starts at Diamond Head, we knew the camp site there was closed but when we got to the access road found that all access was closed so we continued south to the other spots.
Kylie’s Beach was nice enough and we considered staying but in the end the draw of sufficient Telstra coverage to watch the F1 and showers for the morning swayed the decision and we continued south.

A River Turtle crossing the unsurfaced road south of Kylie’s Beach

We were travelling pretty slowly on the unsurfaced roads as we were in no hurry. This turned out to be a good thing as we came across a River Turtle crossing the road which, fortunately, I avoided running over ! After reversing up and taking a couple of pics of it I carried it across the road just in case any other vehicles happened along the road before it managed to cross. There was marshland on either side of the road so I guess it’s not uncommon for them to cross the road in that area.

The lighthouse at Crowdy Head

We detoured into Crowdy Head itself and went up to the lighthouse to do a bit of whale watching. There were lots of people up there doing the same but the whales were a long way out. The lighthouse was very picturesque, at least I though so anyway. It’s another Victorian period building and is still in use as a lighthouse today.
We had lunch in Harrington before heading into the camp site and setting up. 5 dots of Telstra 3G so shouldn’t have any problems watching the F1, should be a good race.
Tomorrow we’re heading to Tea Gardens to stay on a property there owned by one of the marshals for our group in the 2008 OBC. We’re hoping that as well as catching up with him the young Koala he spotted a couple of weeks ago is still around.