NSW
104 posts
Had a nice afternoon of great windsurfing today at Queens Lake, with plenty of breeze, just a learner, but planing madly all over the lake!
Queens Lake is a very beautiful lake surrounded by bushland in the shadow of North Brother Mountain*. It can be accessed from West Haven at the Sailing Club grounds (about 2 minutes from Laurieton), or Bob's Creek Road from the Highway north of the Kew turnoff (about 10 minutes from Laurieton). The sailing club has no clubhouse as such, but has a nice grassy/shady picnic area. Their race days are Saturdays, with a great assortment of vessels: don't know if they are racing at Easter, tho.
The eastern/ northern/ western sides of Queens Lake are bounded by National Park and Forestry lands with nice picnic areas too (but no camping :-(. Lots of forests and mangroves.
The Lake itself, although quite large, is not so big as Smiths/Myall Lakes further south. The whole lake is only about 4ft deep all the way across but thick slushy mud on the bottom. At the Sailing Club the shores are lined with oyster leases which skirt the southern shores of the lake, out to about 30 metres, and one needs to navigate through these and moored vessels out to the lake proper. Also, some reef walkers would help to prevent cuts at this point and the ruination of a great weekend!
Also, the locals tell me there are no shark problems there (Windsurfing at Smith's Lake yesterday near Green Point had a baby dolphin taken by a shark just metres behind me!), although plenty of dolphins and other marine life. Fishing is great. .
Don't know what the holiday traffic would be like but every time I have been there it has been quite deserted. Holiday crowds at nearby Crowdy Bay National Park with Easter being the worst, and surfing is a dead loss for the crowds. Locals don't seem to be much into windsurfing from my experience.
It is a popular lake for the locals to go for a day out fishing and you can hire boats and canoes from the Christmas Cove Caravan Park.
Winds average about 18 km/hr during April at 3pm and peak generally between 1pm and 4 pm.
So, my advice is, pack your gear or you will regret it!
Have a great holiday and drive safely! Hopefully the highway bypass past Coopernook might be open to traffic by then although it was "officially" opened today.
*Captain Cook in his voyage down the East Coast named the three brother mountains. Coincidently, local Aboriginal legend tells of the death of three brothers. North Brother Mountain is the resting place of Dooragan, the youngest. The mountain supports a wide range of vegetation communities - including some of the best examples of old growth blackbutt forest in NSW and pockets of sub-tropical rainforest - that provide habitat for gliders, bats and koalas and offer unbeatable views up and down the NSW coast.
NSW
58 posts
Just passed by Queens lake today on the way to Bonny Hills for work.
Looks like a top place.
I recon Bonny Hills would also be good in a NE