18th Feb - 19th Feb. The Entrance to Nimbin

Nights spent:

The Entrance: 2
Tamworth: 1
Coffs Harbour: 3
Broomes Head: 1
Ballina: 2
Byron Bay: 5
Nimbin: 1

It was actually a surprisingly nice place, didn't think many foreigners came here, but it seemed like a get-away-holiday destination for the Sydney types. It has lakes on the West side and the coast on the East side and boasts to be a renowned fishing spot. You can do every water sport possible here.

The rain still hadn't subsided even when we arrived at the campsite, which incidentally took us around an hour to find as sign posts in this country are a 'bit hit and miss'. We sat for around an hour until we could pay for the pitch. In between a shower we had a chance to quickly jog down to the bay, Blue Bay, which was a few minutes from the campsite. There were surfers catching huge waves on the point and many onlookers. Seemed like a local scene of very good surfers.

The next day was our first day of sunshine since Sydney, we made the most of this by not being in our wagon for a start, and taking a long walk along the beach to the estuary entrance. We saw an advert for Pelican feeding, so we hung around until it started. Check out the piccies and video.

Afterwards we drove to the north side of the entrance, and walked along the vast deserted beach before the clouds came in again. That evening was spent in the van again, with beer and Barramundi and chips.

Next stop was Tamworth, it was a long drive inland, around 5 ½ hours drive, it was nice to get away from the sprawling suburbia of Sydney and into the 'outback'.

We drove through the famous Hunter Valley where most of the country's wine is produced and into 'beefville', Tamworth, where the men are cowboys or should we say 'Jackaroos' and the sheep are scared. Tamworth is also the Country music Capital and home of the big golden guitar, (missed photo opportunity there). Unfortunately the town looked different from when Vik worked on a sheep farm here. There weren't a cowboy anywhere to be seen, maybe they'd been driven outta town...? Fortunately the weather was nice and we had a late barbeque in the campsite. See pictures.

At sun set, as the birds go to roost, it seems that all the fruit bats come out to play. We watched an endless stream of bats fly silently over our heads for around 15mins, there must have been thousands.

The drive from Tamworth to Coffs Harbour was around 4 hours through outback, English countryside, then temperate rainforest in the hills before getting to the coast. Coffs Harbour is famous for the 'Big Banana' (see pics), and is where the warm current from north and the cold of the south meets to form great aquatic variety in abundance - great fishing and diving.

We found a great campsite (4 star) just opposite the beach, so that each morning, before breakfast, Vik could go for a run on the beach and Carl could go for a boogie board in the sea. We had pleasant weather and the first thing we did was to walk along the beach to the Marina and around the town.

The next day we walked to Mutton Bird's Island which is attached to the mainland. We got a spectacular view of the coast north and south. See pics. Afterwards we went to the Botanical Gardens and spent around two hours wandering through the mangroves by the creek (luckily on decking) and through the Eucalyptus trees, looking out for Koalas. The only wildlife we got to see what a huge St. Andrew's Spider and, what looked like a Salamander.

You couldn't go to Coffs Harbour without taking a visit to the Big Banana, so we drove up and got our photos taken under it. Not much there but bananas, but they've tried pretty hard at making it like a little theme park by having a cafe which sold everything as long is it had banana in the ingredients. Of course Carl had to go on the Toboggan. See pics.

During our evening meal, we were visited by a flock of Lorikeets that were looking for some scraps. We fed them (brown) bread, which they cautiously took off the grass at first, but then they got a bit braver that we could hand-feed them, then they got down right cheeky and began to climb all over us - little monkeys! See pics. One cheeky little Lorikeet even came to the van doorway in the morning and demanded feeding! His little chums joined him in no time.

It was a shame to leave Coffs Harbour as the site was in a nice location, and it was fun feeding the Lorikeets, but we had to move onto our next place which was Lake Aragon National Park which was only 1 1/2 hour's drive north. It was a chance to be in the wilderness so we could see more wildlife.

It was a dirt track down to the camp area. There was only a compost toilet and a tap of water, this is more than you usually get in the national parks camping areas. The site manager was to come around and charge us $27 to stay the night, which seemed a bit steep to us considering you're in the middle of nowhere, but we suppose it's for the upkeep of the park.

We walked along the deserted beach for miles before deciding we were extremely thirsty and hungry. For once the sun was out and the heat was extreme. Making our sandwiches was exhausting in the intense heat (which also intensified the stench of pee - obviously people didn't bother trekking to the toilet in the middle of the night) and we didn't have any shelter. Thinking we couldn't stand the heat or the smell , we move on around the lagoon to Broome Heads which we could see from where we were.

Broome Heads felt completely different, it wasn't as sheltered as around the National Park so felt so much cooler, also we got a great pitch right on the edge of the beach. (See pics) We spent the afternoon looking in rock pools and walking up and down the beach. There was a very relaxed getting-away-from-it-all atmosphere here which made you feel very laid back and relaxed.

The stormy weather came in around 9pm as we were making our evening meal of lamb curry. It made it quite difficult as the gas stove kept blowing out, but we huddled in our van and ate our tasty lamb.

The night was noisy and we didn't sleep much. The storm intensified and the rain and pine cones pelted on the roof. We were very glad we had splashed out on the campervan instead of a station wagon and tent, we think we would have wanted to go back to sunny Thailand by now.

Our next stop was Ballina, just up the coast. On the way up we found a Koala sanctuary area, so we stopped off at this little park area and looked intensely for the little hiding bundles of fur. After an unsuccessful hour walking through a few cobwebs (big ones with big spiders in the middle) which strewn right across the grassy paths we gave up.

Well, Ballina was a disappointment due to the weather. We actually spent our first day in the van, all day! The weather was so bad that we didn't even bother getting out, so we just read our books . The only excitement of the day was making our evening meal. The next day was only marginally better, but we'd had enough of being shut in, so we walked to the pier. The sea was stormy and it reminded us of the North Sea. After the small break in the weather we got back in the van and did our chores, getting maps and activity leaflets from the tourist info, going on the internet in the local library, and getting our meal from Woolworths (which is like Tesco over here).

The next day we headed off to Byron Bay (Vik's favourite place and Carl's now), stopping off at Lennox Head for Carl to look at the famous point break.

We found a really well located campsite by Clarkes Beach (Byron Bay). It was sheltered here which made it a good spot for surfing. As usual, we wanted to check the area out so we walked along the beach and checked out the town. Byron Bay is a mixture of old hippy and new boutique. The hotels and shops are trendy and sophisticated with a handful of galleries ( always a sign of money). The surf scene is pretty big here too, many surf shops with board hire.

On our first full day we walked up to the lighthouse. The sky was turning grey and by the time we got there the heavens opened. We spent around an hour amusing ourselves with the underwater DVD that was showing in the museum before it eased enough for us to head back.

As we walked back through town, we were handed a flyer for a bar/restaurant/club for backpackers. It's offer was for $2 meal before 8:30pm. Bargain. We had a few beers before it opened, then went in and ordered the fish and chips option. Vik handed two, two dollar coins and to our amazement the woman gave back two, two dollar coins in change (well, we weren't gonna say anything). Who says there's no such thing as a free lunch! The meal was huge and delicious, two big portions of fish each and loads of chips and salad. Bargainest goldmine ever!

One of the days Carl hired a 8' 9" Bic board and spent the afternoon surfing while Vik went for a long run along the beach. The next morning Vik had a go, but was a bit rusty (hadn't done it for 2 years!).

Most of the days were spent on the beach either running, boogie boarding or surfing while we were lucky enough to have OK weather.

We were sad to leave Byron, but we needed to move on and our next place was Nimbin, famous in the backpacker scene for a place to visit. On the way there we stopped off at Minyon Falls to see the spectacular waterfall which the recent rain had helped.

We really didn't know what to expect of Nimbin, but were glad that we only had a night there. This place, hours inland and in the middle of nowhere, seems to be a hangout for the old hippies where you can buy hash in the street and the police seem to turn a blind eye.

We found a campsite at the bottom of the valley which happened to be a bit waterlogged. It was still raining and you couldn't do anything without getting your feet wet and dirty. Fortunately we had the local pool next door (which was free!) so spent quite some time swimming .

Nimbin was quite an interesting place, but unless you wanna buy some hash, you could see the whole place within an hour. Luckily we were off to the Gold Coast (Queensland) next for a bit of action.