The Bouddi Coastal walk in NSW is a short 8km walk that took me through a nice variety of coastal landscapes. I say short, but with all the beach play, we were out all day!

I started at Putty Beach with the kids along for the day. There is a campground here so it would be fun to stay for a full weekend of beaches!

The walk heads up some stairs at the end of Putty beach and almost immediately emerges onto some amazing cliff views! The kids kept getting ahead of me as I was stopping to take too many pictures. I finally upgraded my phone from an iPhone 8 to an iPhone 11 (cheapy) and I had a play around with the wide angle lens function. I quite like the result! See pics at the end.

After the cliff walking we descended into Maitland Bay Beach. We could have stopped here and played all day. There were lots of little bushcraft shelters built out of driftwood and it was tempting to make one but we didn’t. Might return one day though and have a go! The kids counted over one hundred dead jellyfish on the shore. The beach was very clean otherwise. We honestly thought about ending the walk here and returning and it would have been a fun day, but I was determined to walk the full length so the kids kinda had to follow!

The trail became very steep with lots of ups and downs and huge stairways to climb. The kids were grumpy with me. We came out on a wide vehicle trail which we thought would be nice and flat but somehow seemed to keep rising. This was the least enjoyable part as we were walking in high sun and there wasn’t much to see. Would have preferred a single person track here as there would have been shade. It was a coastal moorland but it was not interesting somehow. All we saw was road.

After a descent there was a little cove with caves in it but was just walked on by, eager to get to Little Bay Beach for a swim. We finally got there and realised that it wasn’t really a swimming beach as there were rocks everywhere. So we explored the rock pools and sat in the water and let little fish swim around us. The tide started coming in and we had a bit of fun in the water. There was a little campsite here but I think I’d rather go to Putty Beach campground as the beach was swimable.

We had the choice of turning around and walking the same way back to the car or carrying on a bit to Macmasters beach. We chose the shorter option and after having an ice cream at the surf club we called a taxi to go back to Putty Beach. The surf club at Macmasters beach was actually where the five lands walk began, which I did with my son a couple of years ago. So he was impressed to learn that with the ten kilometre 5 Lands Walk and the eight kilometre Bouddi Coastal walk he has now done 18km of coastline walking!

Back at Putty Beach was decided to stay and play on the beach for a bit. My son saw a fin in the water and shouted “shark”, which we didn’t really believe until we saw the fin too. I thought I saw two fins. The kids both hurriedly left the water!

Watching closer the creatures seemed to be porpoising and we realised they were dolphins – two of them. They seemed to be circling and we guessed they were corralling fish before having a feed. What a wonderful end to an excellent day out!

See below for some video and lots of photos!