You turn off the highway toward the coast and head down a forest road, edged with yellow signs bearing the black silhouette of a kangaroo, and eventually reach a small car park and path that leads to the headland, overlooking the Pacific. It apparently got its name because the early settlers used to gather there to watch for ships when supplies were low.
And you can see for miles up and down the coast, miles of beaches which are usually empty. Because this is a holiday weekend, three lifeguards had set up shop just below us, sticking their flags in the sand, and a handful of people were bathing, with three surfers just outside the flags.
We made our way down the side of the headland and walked north. You always get flayed on these beach walks from the sun, the steady wind, the blown sand and the spray. There were two body boarders, enjoying the isolation, but I always think it takes real nerve to surf on these huge, empty beaches.
Surfers at Hungry Head
We reached the breakwater where the Bellinger river meets the sea. Peter Carey describes a shipwreck here in his novel, Oscar and Lucinda, and it is up this river that the couple's glass church is shipped. I re-read the book recently and its descriptions of the early days of European settlement in Sydney and this area and its scenery really came to life. No shipwrecks or glass churches yesterday, though, just a solitary fisherman picking his way over the boulders to the end of the breakwater.
Back in the car park, a kangaroo was grazing, with a joey in her pouch. You always expect the youngsters to sit in the pouch with their head poking out, but they don't; they just crawl in headfirst and usually leave a leg or two flopping out. It looks quite alarming, as though the mother has some terrible deformity. But neither of them seem to mind.
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