Last night we had a plan, this morning that changed! The Pacific Highway has been closed for some days for a fire near Taree, but a diversion was in place via Taree and Wingham. We planned originally to take this. Then, yesterday afternoon they closed the highway further north as the fire seemed to have spread. So, we headed to the airport and booked a flight down to Sydney ….
This morning, we checked quickly online, and to our surprise the whole Pacific Highway was open again. So …. change of plan, we got back in the car and headed south. The road was clear all the way, but it was really erie driving through completely burned out bush which was still smoking in many places. However, we had a clear run and apart from a short stop at Nabiac we just kept going and arrived in Nelson Bay about 11am.
Nelson Bay was hazy due to the smoke, but not too bad, so we pottered around for a few hours. We headed to the information centre to find out about the area and also hired some snorkelling gear. A quiet day after our dash south ……