Up the coast to Terrigal today, under a moody sky — dark cloud, scattered showers, the whole scene turned dramatic — though none of it deterred the swimmers, the surfers or the fishermen. It’s about an hour north of the city and remains, weather notwithstanding, a genuinely lovely spot: the rock formations have a quiet grandeur, the sand runs to several colours in places, and there’s a lagoon calm enough to swim in. We braved the reliably chaotic A1 traffic (why is it always so full?), made our stroll along the front, and had a meal with the family. A good moment.
Terrigal’s other visitors include pelicans, dolphins and humpback whales. None of them chose to appear for us today.
The whales keep a timetable, and we were simply out of season. Each year tens of thousands of humpbacks travel the “humpback highway” along this coast — north to warm breeding waters through winter, south again with their calves into spring — and the Central Coast headlands are among the best places to watch them pass. In February, in the middle of the Australian summer, they were a whole hemisphere away. Reason enough, perhaps, to come back between May and November.