Having descended to the east coast from the mountains for the first time in our journey thus far we decided that instead of making and breaking camp every day or two we would set up a base-camp and put our nomadic wandering activities on hold for a week or so.
Being the ‘off-season’ as far as tourists are concerned, i.e.: NOT school holidays, NOT summer, NOT a public holiday long-weekend, NOT Easter or NOT Christmas (that is a pretty narrow window when you write down all of the 'exceptions'), NSW National Parks were promoting a ‘pay 2 stay 3’ deal. Hot and cold running water, a camp kitchen and laundry facilities were just what we needed after several days in the bush so we ‘doubled-down’ and signed up to pay for 4 & stay for 6 nights at the Trial Bay Gaol campground. It was perfect - our site was sheltered from the wind but had views looking out across Trial Bay while the resident kangaroos provided some close contact with nature as well as the entertainment with their antics or when they sparred with each other!
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| Our base-camp was located to the left of Trial Bay Gaol - nice view! |
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| Resident campground kangaroo enjoying a scratch as Grant looks on |
After taking care of domestic duties on day 1 we were free to explore the region via daily outings up and down the coastline.
To the south we visited the town of Port Macquarie that happened to be in the midst of its “Hello Koalas” festival. More than 60 koala sculptures, all the same but each with a unique ‘paint-job’, are located across the town and surrounds.
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| Heather with a Koala Sculpture in Pt. Macquarie |
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| Grant with one of the other 60 odd koala sculptures in town |
In nearby Kempsey we came across the Slim Dusty Centre. Slim Dusty passed away in 2003 but is an Australian country music legend and the centre is a museum honouring their most famous son.
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| Out the front of the Slim Dusty Centre in Kempsey |
One of Slim’s most well known songs is ‘Pub With No Beer’. The song tells of the sorrow felt when, parched and thirsty, you arrive at a pub only to find it has no beer! The Pub upon which the story was based is located in the hills not that far away in the tiny town of Taylor’s Arm so we decided to pay it a visit.
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| The 'Pub With No Beer' in Taylor's Arm was made famous by Slim Dusty |
Fortunately, when we were there they had beer so we had a drink to celebrate then went home.
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| Enjoying a beer at the Pub With No Beer. How does that happen? |
The town of Coffs Harbour is the major regional centre along this section of the coast with all of the facilities expected of a town with a population of ~70,000, but it was the ‘Big Banana’ located on the highway as you enter town that caught our eye.
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| Heather standing at left of the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour |
Why a Banana? Well, as you may have guessed, bananas are grown in the region. We stopped, took a photo, had a Banana smoothie and moved on.
The coastline in this part of NSW is beautiful. Waves continually rolling in from the Pacific Ocean to the east crashing into long white sand beaches and headlands make for great walking, fishing, surfing and sunrises. One of the best known locations for all of the above is Byron Bay. While there, we visited the lighthouse situated atop Cape Byron at the easternmost point of the Australian mainland where, it rightly claims to be ‘the first place in Australia to see the sun rise each morning’.
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| Heather at Cape Byron - the most easterly point of the Australia mainland |
We were not there early enough for the sunrise but we did see shoals of fish being hunted by sharks, dolphins surfing the waves in towards the shore and humpback whales blowing and breaching as they make their annual migration northwards. Not bad for just an hour of viewing from the lookout!
In total we spent 12 days in and around this stretch of the NSW coast and we enjoyed every bit of it but it was time for WTF? - Where are The Farrows?, like the whales, to resume our northward journey. Next stop will be somewhere in the state of Queensland. We don’t know where just yet but will fill you in when we next post.
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