.png)
Travel Review: Booti Booti National Park
If you love beaches and bushwalking then put Booti Booti National Park on your bucket list right now! With its pristine beaches, aqua water and rainforest bush walks, Booti Booti National Park is a spectacular gift from Mother Nature. I visit this area a lot and every time I do I can't get enough of it. The beach below is Shelly Beach, it is unofficially a nudist beach I found out way too late! Yes, I had to turn my head a few times but that didn't put me off marvelling at the beauty of this little paradise. There's also plenty of accomodation to choose from.
About 20km from Forster, Booti Booti National Park is comprised of an 8km peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and Smiths Lake. There is so much to explore in this beautiful area that covers 1,566ha of scenic headlands, stunning beaches, vibrant rainforest, and 11km of estuarine foreshore right next to Forster. The name comes from “butibuti,” the local Worimi Aboriginal word meaning “plenty of honey.”
The beaches in this area are beautiful, however only Elizabeth Beach is patrolled in summer, other beaches are Boomerang Beach, Blueys Beach, Seven Mile Beach and Shelly Beach.
Today I decided I'd do part of the Booti Booti National Park bush walk from Elizabeth Beach to Seven Mile Beach and back again. The track is classed as moderate to steep and I'm here to tell you in places it is very steep. It's worth the effort though.
My heart belongs in nature and whenever I walk through a forest I can feel a vibe of energy. A calming beautiful energy that immediately sweeps over me and makes everything seem so tranquil. I love to find unusual things to take photos of like the red mushroom above and these unique trees below.
Along my walk, I enjoyed the songs of birds and at times some spectacular views of the ocean.
There were plenty of other people around so I didn't feel worried that I was on my own, until I came across a couple of mating snakes on the footpath! The photo below is as close as I could get with my camera but if you would like to see the Facebook video of these amorous snakes then click here.
I just waited patiently until the snakes moved on and keeping very still. I think these might have been carpet snakes which are not poisonous but I thought better safe than sorry. On the way back I enjoyed the beautiful greenery of this rainforest.
When I finished this walk I decided to take the Shelly Beach walking track. This track was much easier to navigate unlike the goat track of the previous walk. Once I made it to Shelly Beach I was in awe and felt like I was on some remote tropical island. I was lucky this day, because all the beaches around the area were calm. There are many times where you would not dare go swimming in some of the stormy days. I noticed that fishermen were at the top of some of the rocks so I decided to head up there too and that's when I saw schools of mullet making their way up the coast. incidentally, have you heard of the Mullet Run? Well you have now!
If you look at the dark shadow areas of water in these photos they are the mullet making their way up the coast. Sometimes they jump and it is quite spectacular.
I stayed and watched the fishermen and waves for a while but then it started to get dark and I had to climb back down the cliff and wanted to be able to see what I was doing.
Back down at the beach (discreetly looking away at the man running out of the water naked) I stopped and looked at the sunset and thought about how lucky I was to be in this paradise. The seagulls seemed to be enjoying it too!
As I drove back to Forster on The Lakes Way I made one more stop to take my last photo of the day of Smiths Lake.
This area is around 3.5 hours from Sydney. You can take the Tourist drive via Seal Rocks or stay at Forster and make a day's outing visiting Booti Booti National Park.
I had already spent three hours walking around Forster this morning before deciding to head to Booti Booti so by the end of the day I think I must have walked 6 hours all up and believe me, I slept well.
