KIAMA, East Beach

16^th & 17^th February 2012

This was the most beautiful place on earth, the caravan park was immaculate, the people were a bundle of fun, we could have stayed there a lot longer.

A very historic town with just like Yamba and other coastal towns a great focus on changing the bays to allow for shipping.

We did the customary walk to the lighthouse and the ‘Big Blow Hole’ this is a cave in the rocks where the waves flow in and force air and water out of a large hole in it’s roof but it wasn’t on song that day or the next.

We spoke to a local in the pool who suggested we walk around the point from the caravan park to see the “Little Blow Hole’ as it is the one to see. It was unbelievable which enormous burst of air and water being shot up into the sky.

Freeman’s Campground Birdie Beach Munmorah Nature Reserve.

15^th February 2012

Very clean and close to this beautiful beach so we headed off for a walk. As we came along the track we came across a car park, now this was mid week and the car park was packed. There seemed to be some very nervous people as we walked through. We can understand it when we spot the sign “UNCLAD BATHING”, we went the other way. Old fat guys and skinny younger asian woman just doesn’t sit well.

The ‘Ruins’ Booti Booti National Park.

13^th & 14^th February 2012

 I don’t know what I was expecting but when you read ruins, you are kinda expecting to see something old and historic. When we enquired about the ‘ruins’ we were told that there used to be an old homestead here that has been gone for some time.

The beaches were spectacular and all you wanted to do was walk and pick up shells and read a book. The next day we embarked on a walk with the description Moderate to Steep Slopes. Bloody hell it was wet and huge and really rugged (talk about steep) but we kept going walking from 7 mile beach to Elizabeth Beach. Coming out of the bush we had leeches and we were exhausted and bumped into some locals. They asked where we had walked and basically told us that we were mad and that nobody walks the track when it is  wet, we headed back along the highway around Wallis Lake.

That night 2 young girls came in in a campervan and headed off to a secluded corner of the park right against the beach, I don’t know what happened but next thing they are pulled up beside us so I can only imagine something spooked them. Next thing this different music starts playing and we look out the windows and they have a circle of candles set out on the ground and then we got spooked.

SOUTHWEST ROCKS

11^th & 12^th February 2012

 .

Another beautiful place on the Macleay River. We met some lovely people here of which one couple was Les and Marge. Les used to be the milko for Springwood & Rochedale when we first moved there. It was a great laugh and many a wine was drunk.

More walks here around to Horseshoe Bay, the Smokey Cape lighthouse and the historic Trial Bay Gaol and lots of swimming, my shoulders are feeling so much better with the swimming, I need to do more of this when I get home.


The Gaol was a very interesting place - The prisoners built the breakwater at Trial Bay & this prison was the first example of collaboriative management.This saw regular musicals performed for the locals & attempted escapes were very rare and the high security cells were never used to the true sense of the word.


The lighthouse reminded both of us of the Byron Bay Lighthouse.  The caretaker cottages are now being used as B & B's.

BEAUTIFUL YAMBA

Well my first attempt to inform you of our adventure went belly up when the computer crashed and did not perform an auto recovery.

Was I calm and relaxed, not a bloody chance in the world I hate computers but I will attempt to remember the literary brilliance that I had achieve before I was so rudely interrupted.

We headed off on the 1^st February planning to do a trip through the coastal areas of NSW as well as the mid country areas.

The reason for the trip?

We just wanted to get out of the place, meet up with some life-long friends as well as help Josh do a refit of a pharmacy in Huskisson NSW.

First stop was the beautiful coastal town of Yamba where we stayed at the Blue Dolphin resort, what a great place, beautiful and clean and was amazingly vacant.

We met up with John and Wil along with 2 other couples who they had met on their 15 month trip around Australia. Bernie and Bev came up from Canberra and John and Judy came from the “Bright Side” of Brisbane.

Our first night was the traditional trip to the bowlo for dinner.

Spent the next day relaxing around the pool followed by a walk through the Iluka nature reserve. We had the privilege of feeding a couple of leeches, I hope they liked the alcohol supplemented diet.

The next day took us to Angourie Reserve and Yuraygir National Park as well as Spooky Beach, Blue pools and Green Point.

After all that treking we had a thirst which saw us head to the Pacific Hotel, what a view.

We were getting beautiful weather but we kept hearing about the terrible weather further south.

Trice had always wanted to do the paddle boat so off we went. The fellow who unlocked the boat said that the first 5 minutes are fun but after that it will become a chore, he was so right.

That created a dire need to partake in a few relaxing wines that night on the banks of the Clarence river as the sun settled.

A bit of excitement today, coming back to our site I was coming around a large tree and there he was at eye level. Each day at around 4 o’clock 3 rather large goannas come walking through the sites looking for food so they became a bit of a centre of attention around happy hour time.

This is what greeted me as I came back to the site, that was not a squeal and I was only walking slightly faster than normal.

This was a bit better than the day before when a woman from Dapto got such a fright she fell over and split her thumb open ending up in hospital, she already had a broken arm so she must have been a bit accident prone, don’t you love the name DAPTO….

We were supposed to leave today but where we were getting great sunshine with warm temperatures but further south was copping it. We decided to stay another 4 nights.

We decided to find out more about Yamba so we headed off to the museum to start the historic 3 klm walk. By the time we got back we have travelled some 6 klm but we did learn a heck of a lot about this great little coastal town.

A little thirst was quenched by lunch and an alcoholic beverage at the Yamba golf club.

Off for a little drive to Mclean to find out more about our Scottish heritage, we didn’t find much other than the tartans for the Campbells and the Shaws, the main streets have all the telegraph poles painted in various clan tartans.

On our last night at Yamba we caught up with John and Maureen who are good friends who were staying at the Blue Dolphin as well.

We are off again

Trice proving she has no fear

Trice Sandboarding......Here she goes