Life's better when Nick doesn't have a cold.

9 January, 2010

We finally made it to the jetty in Coffs, and it was awesome. The beach is great as it is protected, so the waves are tame. We enjoyed watching the daredevils jumping off of the jetty in spectacular fashion, and discovered that there is loads of shade underneath it on the beach, where we sat and dug a huge pool. I love Jetty Beach.

We decided to leave Coffs Harbour yesterday. There is loads of Australia left to see after all.

First stop: Carobana Confectionary Factory just north of Coffs. Unfortunately there were no orders, so the factory wasn't working, but there were loads of pictures and explanations about how carob grows, and there were tons of samples. What I like about carob is that it is naturally sweet, so it's easy to find caroby treats with no added sugar. We sampled peppermint carob buttons, orange ones, carob coated crystallised ginger (Nick's favourite), and carob coconut clusters (my favourite). Carobana was great. They have free tea and coffee, free colouring in sheets for the kids, and country charm. We bought some carob for the road and headed north.

We drove through Grafton. Nothing really grabbed our attention except for the size of the McDonalds - it was colossal. We headed on to McLean, "Australia's Scottish City" and it was excellent. The telephone poles along the streets are painted with various tartans, and apparently you can go into "The Scottish Shop" to track down your own. The village was picturesque and quaint and vaguely reminiscent of Scotland, including Gaelic translations on the street signs. We stopped at a fruit stand to pick up our lunch (a local watermelon) and took it to a playground, enjoying the impossibly fluffy, cottony clouds meandering past. It was gorgeous.

We headed through Yamba but didn't stop as it was completely chockers with holiday makers - I have never seen so many tents packed side by side in a caravan park. After we ditched, I did a bit more reading about the place in the visitor centre brochures we had picked up in Coffs, and it looked like a really interesting, beautiful place if given half a chance. But we had already left, so on we went towards Lismore.

This whole part of the world is amazingly beautiful. Rolling green hills, neat rows of macadamias and coffee (I stole that verbatim from the guidebook - I have no idea what coffee looks like on the plant), dramatic clouds casting dramatic shadows on the hills, small winding country roads with drivers who don't really mind if you go a bit under the speed limit because you're new to driving a motorhome (me) - in fact they seem to just back off to enjoy the view themselves. Bananas and sugarcane feature prominently. Yum.

We stayed at a caravan park because we didn't spot any obvious free camping spots in our initial drive around Lismore. It was one of the dodgier caravan parks that is populated by like 95% permanent residents, but it was cheap.

This morning we headed to Heritage Park which was very cool, full of interesting play structures and lots of different little areas for the kids to play in. AND a train that actually goes around the park, complete with a little train station and a (grumpy) conductor/ticket seller. I made the kids some sushi for lunch which we enjoyed in the park, and then the kids and I hopped on the train for our two laps around the park before we headed off to Tucki Tucki Reserve to do some koala spotting.

I had read about the koala reserve when I was in Byron Bay in October and was taken by the actual possibility of spotting koalas in the wild. The history is that in the late 1950s, residents were concerned about the diminishing koalas and koala habitat, so they set aside some land and replanted koala food trees. The land ended up in government hands where it was named Tucki Tucki Reserve. There are signs that give clues to finding koalas:



Step one, tick (awww, his very own koala poo):



Step two, tick:



But alas, no koalas. The kids weren't disappointed though, which was good. We had a nice quiet bushwalk surrounded by the sound of wind blowing through the beautiful high trees.



Yesterday Nick and I looked at the map to work out our plan of action from Lismore since there is so much to do and see around here. It would be good to avoid backtracking as much as possible. We gotta go to Nimbin, the "alternative lifestyle capital of Australia". We read that the craft market in The Channon (I love a name that starts with "The") is spectacular, with around 250 stalls and 10,000 people pouring into the little village. And it just happens to be on the 2nd Sunday of the month, which just happens to be tomorrow. As I type, we are sitting in a nice grassy area in beautiful tiny The Channon, the kids playing on the rocks and with the leaves and sticks, having a good ole time. We're going to park near where the markets are going to be held and hope that we aren't in the way of the stallholders.