Yamba to Coffs Harbour via Lawrence and Grafton

Another fabulous day has greeted us today. We had breakfast on the main street at a cafe; bacon and egg rolls; very nice. After another coffee, and a quick visit to the NRMA to ask about the ferries and Sydney tolls, we headed off. The journey took us through Maclean, where all the electricity poles are painted with various tartans. We came across a stand of trees which were full of fruit bats. There would have been literally hundreds, if not more than a thousand.

I don't recall having seen them in such numbers as this, and didn't realise they make such a bizzare noise. While they were mostly just 'hanging aroud', occasionally one would take flight. They are pretty big with their wings spread.

Another lifting bridge took us over an arm of the Clarence river, this one on the way out of Maclean.

10km or so from Maclean we waited a short time for the ferry, which took us to the north side of the river. This one was free.

A very quiet and pleasant drive, having avoided the main highway, brought us back into Grafton where we paused a short while for lunch and to stock up on water and get petrol.

Grafton is renowned for its jacarandas, however they are not flowering at present. The same can not be said of the tulip trees (I think that's what they are). This one was across the road from the petrol station.

After mucking up, and ending up on the Pacific Highway, instead of the long way round via Glenreagh and Nana Glen, as planned - didn't realise until too late to go back - we approached Coffs Harbour. Just north of here are a string of jewel-named beaches - sapphire, emerald etc.
We pulled into Sapphire Beach and found it deserted except for 4 other people; it started to get busy as we left, with another two people arriving. There was a slightly raised platform from where we could see more whales.

After a short time in the visitors centre we arrived at our accomodation. We've booked for 2 days so that we can give the area it's due attention. The unit has a separate bedroom, so hopefully the fridge wont keep us awake all night. It's not exactly the cleanest place we've stayed (even Grafton was better - actually Grafton was spotless)). Still it will do, it was very cheap.

We went out to get some tea; the hotellier suggested a couple of places, including the bowling club, but we didn't fancy that sort of thing, so we went to what we thought was supposed to be 'eat street', but found only 5 or 6 open places, mostly Indian, which I'm not keen on. We went into one place an waited more than 1/2 an hour and our order still hadn't been taken, so we abandoned it and went in search of alternatives. Eventually we found a fish and chip shop up on the highway, which had in reality shut, but they agreed to grill us some fish and fry us some chips. These we devoured in the hotel room. I went next door to the petrol station to see if they had coffee, but found that it too had closed. We settled for a cup of tea.

All in all, apart from minor problems with dinner, a rather pleasant day.

Yamba to Yamba via Iluka

A slower morning than yesterday was followed by the short drive to Angourie. We had coffee and toast at a restaurant that's in the top 200 restaurants guide. Opposite to the restaurant is a walking track which leads down to the beach. From here you can see back to Yamba.

We took a convoluted walking route to get to the Blue and Green Pools, quarries that had filled with fresh water when natural springs were disturbed. However, by happy accident, Karen found some flannel flowers, which she's been looking for for the whole trip.

This is the blue pool. While I would hesitate to call it blue, it is certainly less green than the green pool. If you look at the enlargement of this image, you may be able to see that there are a bunch of kids jumping off the rock ledge into the pool.

When we were finished at Angourie, we headed out to the highway, north this time, and turned off to Iluka. Before reaching there, though, we found it imperative to pause at Australia's most southerly coffee plantation, at Wombah. This comprised of a quaint little tea (coffee?)-room, along side a section of the plantation. Here are the beans as they appear on the tree, prior to picking, drying, roasting and grinding. 

Arriving in Iluka at lunch time sent us on a quest for something to eat. The selection was made quite easy, finding only 2 shops open, and one appearing somewhat disorganised. We went to the other and shared a king prawn burger, which was quite OK.

Lunch consumed, we headed off on the "World Heritage Rainforest Walk". This 2.5km each way walk took us through a stand of "littoral" rain forest. The forest was teeming with wildlife, including loads of birds (this robin being an example), and a Monitor lizard.

The walk ends right at Iluka Bluff. This elevated location gives a spectacular view over the beaches both left and right, and over the ocean where we could see several groups of whales splashing, breaching and blowing.

The majority of land use in this area is for sugar cane. These are the trucks that haul the cut cane from the plantations to the mills. The mill at Harwood is the oldest mill in Australia. 

Iluka is only a short distance from Yamba as the albatross flies, but is about 50km by road, since the nearest bridge over the Clarence river is the one associated with the main highway. It's also a lifting bridge, although we've seen little river traffic at all, let alone anything that would require the bridge to be lifted.

We've decided it's too late to try to get to Coffs Harbour today, so we're going to stop in at Yamba again. We'll obviously stop at the same motel, given how satisfied we were this morning. 

Since our accomodation is sorted, we've taken a little time to drive around this pretty town. The harbour is genuinely working, with a significant fleet of fishing vessels.

There are a variety of other cruising and pleasure vessels moored at the marina.

Our exploration  found us at the light house. This is not quite as grand as the Byron Bay one, but has it's own beauty.

 I failed yesterday to mention dinner. This was taken at "El Pirat", a tapas bar at the top of the hill. I'm sure we all know that tapas is where you order multiple small plates of Spanish delicacies, which you share with those at your table. The plates arrive generally one after the other, so you have opportunity to savour each in turn.

I've never "done" tapas before, so it was easy for me to concur with a diner at a nearby table who we overheard remarking to his table-mate that this was the best tapas he'd ever had (he had, apparently, tried many tapas bars).

Dinner was in fact so good that we went there again tonight, to try some of the dishes we didn't try last night. We were not disappointed.

Byron Bay to Yamba

Got up and out remarkably early for us, in an effort to beat the predicted heat.
Repeating the walk we did last night has given a different view of the beaches around Byron Bay. The main beach has quite a few surfers on it already.

On reaching the light house, we're delighted to find an ice-cream seller; we both select hokey-pokey and swiss chocolate double scoop cones.

Today we continued on past the lighthouse around to the other side of the bluff, then walked through some very nice rainforest areas, past another beach, up and over a rocky outcrop, and eventually back down to Watego's Beach, where we had parked the car.

Heading south from Byron, we made a detour at Ballina to take the back roads through Keith Hall to Wardell. This involved a short trip across the richmond river on a cable drawn car ferry. $4! - it would be free in SA. However, it was a pleasant drive through some new countryside.

Broadwater has one of the few remaining sugar mills. During harvest season (now) they operate 24 x 7.

We've diverted off the main highway again, this time to go through "Evans Head". We detoured from the diversion to enter Broadwater National Park. The road into the park provided some fabulous  birdlife. Amongst others, these yellow-tailed black cockies were seen.

Arriving at the end of the detour, we walked the 10 minutes onto the beach. Another example of the miles of deserted beaches that can be found in this part of NSW.

Back on the main road, we try to decide where to stay this evening. We ask the advice of the very helpful people at the Ferry Park information centre, and decide that Yamba's the go.

We drove past a few possible options after taking the Yamba side road off the highway, and discover the Aston Motel. This is located right on the edge of town, where the bushland starts. No through traffic and very reasonable rates. We decide to book in anf find the rates better still with the RAA discount, and that the rooms are fabulous, with king size beds, fresh (real) milk etc. etc. Theres a nice pool and spa and BBQ and free wireless internet. I can't work out why you'd stay anywhere else. The critter below was photographed just next to the carpark.

Grafton to Byron Bay via the Big Prawn

After a rather unsatisfactory night at the Civic Motel (not one to be recommended) we got croissants with ham and cheese from a nice cafe we discovered yesterday afternoon on the main street.

Eventually, we got underway, heading along the Pacific Highway toward Ballina. This incurred yet another crossing of the enormously long, treacherously narrow lifting bridge that crosses the Clarence River.

We had read that there was a ferry crossing about 15km out of Grafton, which allowed us to take a nice drive away from the main highway, and then cross back to the other side about 20km further on. However, it turns out that the ferry at the first location was closed, so we ended up going along the main highway instead.

En route to Ballina, we passed what appaers to be be an old sugar mill town, which contained the pictured church.

We continued on, pausing at the Victoria Park Nature Reserve. This is a remnant of the natural sub tropical rain forest that was in this area before it was cleared, mainly for the red cedar that was native to the area. The pictured butterfly was being quite difficult to capture on the camera.

This next image shows the scale of the trees.

The return trip back to the highway took us through many sugar cane plantations.

The entry into Ballina took us past the Giant Prawn. How attractive it is.

We've lucked in with the weather again; today we're expecting 27 degrees, and we have blue, cloudless skies. We made it into Byron bay after driving tourist route 30, which took us through the smaller coastal towns on the way, and avoided the main highway again. We found the information centre, and a not especially enthusiastic gent tee'd us up with a bed and breakfast on the south side of town. The place appears very comfortable so far; not sure how it will be when the pathetic drunks finally make their way past later on.

We strolled up and down most of the main street, and up to Main Beach. If you enlarge this photo, you should be able to see the Cape Byron Lighthouse, and the most easterly point in Australia.

Looking in the other direction shows Mt Warning far off in the distance, the first point in Australia to see the sun each morning.

I've nothing specific to say about this picture, other than that I rather like it so I thought I should include it.

After a mad dash back to the room to collect the car, we wizzed past the multi-million dollar homes of the rich and self-important, and parked at Watego's Beach. From there there's a boardwalk that leads past the most eastern point and around and up to the lighthouse. The image below was taken over Watego's beach.

As you could tell, the sun has now set, and we've thus walked around to the lighthouse in the fading dusk light. This is the lighthouse, built in 1901. You should be able to see that the lamp is operating.

Last but by no means least is an abstract work by Karen that she plans to sell in one of the wierder shops here at Byron for a small fortune.

I think it's this way up.

We had fish and chips at the beach, which was very nice, and inexpensive. We thought we'd treat ourselves to a nice dessert and coffee, so we had been recommended to go to "The Balcony". The coffee was OK, and one of the desserts, a banana pizza was OK, but the chocolate dipped doughnuts were a bit too weird, and not to either of our tastes.

The real put-you-off was that they allowed smoking in the restaurant, albeit on the balcony. So the desserts, which cost twice what the dinner did, were somewhat disapointing.

Tomorrow, we start our journey south.

Dorrigo to Grafton via Ebor (where's that?!)

We had a nice dinner served to us and the other guests at the B&B last night, although it was a bit cold in the dining room. In the morning we made our way back to Dorrigo, to Cafe Del Fuego where Juan served us a cooked breakfast.

After breakfast we went back in the direction of Armidale, but only as far as Ebor. We went for a short walk in the Cathedral Rock National Park. Even after the bone rattling drive into the park, we decided not to do the entire circuit as it was freezing cold, (quite literally, I think). The park has lots of these strangely arranged, enormous boulders.

Also found in the park are these sundews, just waiting for a tasty morsel to come along.

We headed out of the park and on to Ebor Falls. This is a spectacular double falls with a considerable amount of water flowing over.

From the valley lookout you could see way across the gorge to the west.

Several species of wattle are found around the falls.

This is the view from the lower falls lookout, looking upstream, where you can also see the upper falls in the distance.

Finally, some decent windy road. This is the route from Ebor toward Grafton, where we will be spending the night. The day has warmed up considerably, and we've got the roof down and we can smell the rainforest. Fantastic. This is the driving highlight so far.

We made it into Grafton, and I've bought some new undies, since I've run out and Karen refuses to wash while we're away. We're in a relatively inexpensive motel, which is just off the main strip in town, and also off the main road. Once the lady had taken my money, she told me that there's a disco in the pub across the road that goes until midnight.

We had a little walk around town, and came across this bush / tree. Any idea what it is?

For dinner we went to the Tree Tops Restaurant at the Village Green Hotel. We had entre and dessert, which neither of us finished. The food was excellent, but once again, we ate far too much. There's a recurring theme here I think.

The disco's getting into it's swing now I think, so we'll put some ear plugs in and go to bed.

Dorrigo National Park

This warratah was on a tree in the garden of the B&B at which we stayed last night.

This bird was waiting for a crumb off our cinnamon toast. That's all we bought from the cafe at the Sky Walk because the cafe prices were ridiculous.

However, the Sky Walk was excellent, allowing access over the tree canopy that you would not normally experience. This was free, as was the park entry.

Still waiting for a crumb.

There are lots of trees. I guess that's why its called a forrest.

This small lizard was sunning itself from the hollow end of a fallen tree.

The walk we did was about an hour in each direction, ending at these falls. Normally, you could walk behind the falls, but a portion of the track was eroded away during a recent storm and so this is as close as you could get.

Magnificent views right to the coast were visible from the lookout at the picnic ground near to the information centre

This is the Danger falls (not to be confused with Dangars Falls, near to Armidale). These are very accessible, being just on the edge of town. Plenty of water going over here.

After a busy day's walking, we're off to Juan's cafe where we'll meet him and he'll take us to our accomodation for tonight. Guess what we found on the road....

At the cafe we were given coffee, and then escorted back to the house we'll be staying in tonight. It's about 5 minutes east of Dorrigo. An hour or so later, Juan came with an anti-pasto opener, followed with a serve of Spaghetti Bolognaise. This in turn was followed by an apple pie and ice cream. I've eaten so much (again) I can barely move. The house is a reasonably large, old country house. We're in a bedroom in the main house with it's own facilities. It's cold again tonight, so I'm tucked in bed already, with the electric blanket on. Goodnight!