Blogs from Ballina, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania
May 8th 2012
The first thing we saw when we drove into Ballina was The Big Shrimp. Argh! I refuse to take and post photos of these monstrosities as I simply hate them. Before finishing up my job in Melbourne, a colleague asked whether we would be doing the big things on our trip. I replied yes, thinking she meant the Sydney Opera House and Ayers Rock etc! Apparently there is a whole website dedicated to The Big Things… Ah well, I might come round to it one day, but for now I think it represents the epitome of tackiness. The shrimp aside, Ballina is lovely and quite peaceful. We arrived around lunchtime, so stopped in a park to prepare some food when we saw a couple of tandem parachutists come into land across the road. That was ou ... read more
Our last days in Ballina
Published: February 20th 2012Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Ballina
February 20th 2012
I'm sitting here eating fake Aldi nutella with a spoon while trying to remember what we have done since the last time I posted. This should be easy, but the reality is that I struggle to even remember what day it is much of the time. Yesterday we went to visit Ryan's Uncle and Aunty who have a house south of Ballina at Pimlico. It was our first visit there and both agree that it is in a magic spot. We completely understand why they love living there. After grabbing some lunch we followed them down to the beach (we won't mention how many wrong turns his Uncle took) and took the Triton onto the sand for the first time. It was a lovely afternoon out and after letting Noah have a run around on the ... read more
February 16th 2012
I forgot my joggers. They are sitting at the front door of the house. That's a really stupid thing for someone attempting to rediscover waistline to do. My solution is to walk in my hiking boots, not only are they heavier, they make me look like I have cankles :( Guess that's punishment for forgetting my joggers. Tonight I'm sitting at Ryan's computer typing, in a vain attempt to stop Noah from crying as he falls asleep... they are probably the wrong words as they make it sound like NOah is drifting off into a peaceful dreamland. In reality he is fighting every step and cries if I leave the room... yay me. We have had a couple of fun days though. Yesterday we went for a proper swim in the pool and had our first ... read more
February 9th 2012
The drive from Tenterfi was just beautiful but the road was a little rough but the scenery made up for it. Checked into the Bellina Headland Caravan Park (very nice park - one of the best we have stayed in) $32 pn but disc for Top Tourist member. Lennox Heads is just down the road and the scenery over the ocean is just amazing. Lennox Heads is very touristy but a lovely little town with amazing views over the ocean where they do a lot of surfing. Friday 10th Feb Drove down to Evans Heads as were told it was a great place to stay and it looked very popular, the caravan park on the river/ocean was quite full. Great view from the lookout. Saturday 11th Feb Went for a drive to Bangalow (this place has ... read more
Sanantone in Ballina, northern NSW
Published: December 28th 2011Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Ballina
December 23rd 2011
Had ten days in Ballina at Shaw's bay caravan park on a waterfront site which is very pretty but very breezy as well. The park is very well looked after & is in a prime position with a pub & good takeaway food shop next door.Ballina is a nice town with lots of good shopping & handy to the scenic drives along the coast & hinterland. We went to Nimbin but did'nt find the cookie lady so we had a nice drink at the Nimbin Hotel. The scenery on the way is very like England with green rolling hills which come to an end at the rainforest which was saved from logging by the struggle of the hippies in the 1970's. So good they won the fight it would be criminal to have lost the forest ... read more
December 20th 2011
Staying at Tab's parents house helped keep refreshed for the journey on to Ballina. Only taking us a few hours, we drove into Ballina at about 2.30pm. Having no idea where to go, I rang Mark who directed us to his work. It was good to see Mark as it had been two years since he left the UK to live with Heather. I've known mark for around ten years, and we started chatting like we had only seen each other the other day. Once Mark and Heather had both finished work we all got back to their place to drop our things off and sort our sleeping area, the sofa bed in the front room! The plan was to spend the evening at the local pub where they have a quiz every week. Great, we ... read more
October 14th 2011
In case you missed the memo- we are in Australia! We spent our first week in Sydney car hunting and doing a bit of sight-seeing. We found a little Mitsubishi hatchback within our budget with low milage (kilometerage?) and jumped on the offer. She's a bit old and shaky, but runs great and fits all our bags! We left Sydney early yesterday morning and headed north to Ballina- a 9 hour drive that ended up taking us 12 due to traffic, weather, and, of course, car troubles. Our car started acting funny about 7 hours in when Taylor went to put the blinkers on; basically, the car stopped and restarted itself while we were driving. So we pulled over into a gas station to see what was wrong. When we tried the lights the car died ... read more
June 5th 2011
On 17 May 2011 we drove from Brisbane to Ballina to take delivery of our Mercedes Sprinter motorhome. We had been looking at motorohomes for several years and finally decided to buy one ready for retirement travel. Ballina Campers and Motorhomes is a small manufacturer who make simple, reliable and ecco-friendly motorhomes with accomodation for 2! Sorry grandkids - you will need to sleep in a tent. We have now been on trial camping trips twice to the Queensland Gold Coast while we learned about using all the equipment on board. ... read more
May 10th 2011
On Thursday 28th of April we arrived at dad’s uncle John’s place at Medowie, just north of Newcastle. Some of Dad’s cousins and their kids came over for dinner. The next day John took us four wheel driving on the sand dunes at Stockton beach. We drove to ‘tin city’ (about five houses that people had built among the sand dunes). We then visited Kat, Jembe and India at Smiths Lake for a night. Ash vomited 17 times during the night and filled up 3 and a half lunch boxes. The next day was Dad's birthday and we drove all day to Ballina. The next two nights we stayed at this really good caravan park in Ballina which had minigolf , a games room, a jumping pillow and a camp kitchen. We went to the Byron ... read more
Week 47 Byron, Nimbin, Brunswick & Ballina - OZ
Published: August 10th 2010Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Ballina
August 10th 2010
I was determined to see some of the inland areas as I had been told how pretty this region was, so I gave up a day of beach time in Byron Bay for a trip on The Happy Coach to Nimbin, a rather sad little outpost in the hills that probably doesn’t bear much resemblance to the original hippy communes that settled here in 1973 after holding the first Aquarius festival then stayed on, wanting to practise free love and enjoy all kinds of mind altering substances. It has been hailed as the dope capital of Australia (many would argue that is Canberra) but nowadays its a tourist trap with a weird mix of locals, some of whom are normal and are just cashing in on the tourist dollars, some are old stoners who are completely ... read more
