Over the weekend we jumped in Etta and headed south down the windy roads of the Royal National Park and over the epic Sea Cliff Bridge down to Woonona. Woonona is a small town on the Coal Coast just north of Wollongong – technically it could be considered a northern suburb of Wollongong. Woonona is tucked away a bit from the main Lawrence Hargrave Drive coastal towns and has a chilled out coastal suburban vibe with great beaches.
There’s plenty of cool cafes on the main drag and just back from the Woonona Rock Pool. We had a mean vegie breakfast roll at ‘North Break Cafe’ on Park Road and great coffee at ‘All and Sundry’ on the Princes Highway – get amongst it.
We free camped for the night at the Woonona Rock Pool car park – there’s no, ‘No Camping, No Parking’ signs and the cops actually patrol it at night so you feel safe. You get a great view from the car park as it’s high on the headland. The toilets and cold showers are always open. Just don’t be a douche and leave rubbish, make noise, put up an awning or table out etc. It’s good for a sneaky sleep in the bus. You can bust out your cooking set up somewhere else before retiring for the night.
The sunrise was truly epic, so at 6:30am I grabbed my camera and captured the amazing morning light. The car park was already full by this time with surfers. The swell was pretty crazy so after an early rock pool swim we headed to Austinmer for the day to meet family and chill at the beach with swims in the ocean pool.
A great little weekend getaway was had by all.
