Two nights is the minimum stay and, done properly, it is enough. This is the weekend as regulars do it, timed around the one thing first-timers get wrong: there is no shop in the village, so the holiday starts at the supermarket.
Friday
Leave Sydney before 3pm or after 7pm. Friday afternoon on the M1 is the only bad hour of the weekend.
Shop at Woy Woy or Umina on the way through. Both have full supermarkets on your route, and Woy Woy Fishermen’s Wharf is five minutes off it for prawns and fish for Saturday night. Get everything: there is no general store, café or fuel in Pearl Beach, and the nearest shop is ten minutes back over the hill.
The last ten minutes. Over Mount Ettalong, through the national park on Patonga Drive, and down Pearl Beach Drive into the village. Slow down: it is 50, and the streets are full of children and bikes.
Evening. Unpack, open the glass doors, barbecue in the backyard, listen to the bush. The beach at dusk is 250 metres away if anyone has the energy.
Saturday
Morning: the rock pool. Down to the southern end of the beach early, before the pool fills. Swim, then coffee from the van outside the Memorial Hall on Diamond Road.
Late morning: the walk to Patonga. From the western end of Crystal Avenue, up the fire trail past the sandstone caves to Warrah Lookout for the view, then down the Great North Walk track to Patonga: about three kilometres and an hour and a half. Non-walkers drive the five minutes and meet you at the wharf.
Lunch: the Boathouse Hotel Patonga. Fish and chips from the kiosk on the sand, or a table in the beer garden. Swim off Patonga beach after.
Afternoon. Walk back over the headland, or take the car. Then the backyard: this is the long-lunch-becomes-afternoon part of the weekend.
Sunset: Warrah Lookout by car if you did not walk it, or Green Point on foot. In whale season, bring binoculars.
Dinner at home. The prawns from Friday, the long table, the doors open.
Sunday
Morning: the beach again, or the Arboretum if it is hot. The Ettalong Fresh Food Market runs Saturday mornings, so the Sunday option is the undercover Ettalong Markets, 9am to 4pm, ten minutes away, with the Palm Beach ferry leaving from the wharf next door if you want an hour on the water.
Lunch. Back at the house, or Margarita Daze above Umina Beach on the way out.
Check-out and the drive home. Leave by early afternoon or after 7pm to miss the southbound crawl. The Mount Ettalong Lookout, at the hairpin on the way out, is the last look at the bay.
If you have a third night
Bouddi National Park and the coastal walk to Maitland Bay, about thirty-five minutes away, with dinner at Bells at Killcare on the way back. Or nothing at all, which is what most people with a third night end up doing.
Ready to plan dates? Check availability.
