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Published: March 12th 2009
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Billy Goats gruff
Guarding the ablutions block, Halidays campground NSW Well folks, I know it’s been a while but we have been travelling - a lot. And therefore my time at the keyboard was limited by both time and inclination =)
We spent a wonderful Christmas and New Years with Tom and Clarissa in Brisbane, however we missed our families and friends from the west a great deal. Once the festivities were concluded it was time for us to head into northern NSW with special interest as it is in this region we believed to be the location of our next residence and hopefully a base to both nest and consolidate the last half a decade of work.
We bypassed Byron Bay, as we both have been there several times and had already earmarked it as a possible settling place and headed to Yamba and the coastline south of there. Yamba has the most delicious oysters we have eaten and some really nice bays but nowhere to stay for us and our 2 canines, so we headed further south to a tiny town called Minnie Waters. We were fortunate to land a spot in the caravan park there (no free camping for us as most of the coast there is National
Wasp nests
Harmless - apparently Park) - fortunate because the Christmas school holidays had a loooot of people inhabiting all parks and campsites. Minnie was quaint with a nice surf beach and only a 30 or so permanent houses, none of which had yet to be developed. We only spent the weekend here and then headed south past Coffs harbor to Nambucca heads, which had been described to us by many to be absolutely stunning. And it was, but also absolutely packed! The only place we could stay was a caravan park on the water who asked $60 a night for a square of grass!!! We spent one night there and investigated some free camping sites in the surrounding area to no avail - every single free campsite (ie in the bush) had people camped on top of each other leaving us little hope of finding some peace or isolation.
We spent a night inland at on a private property camping area, I think it was called Hallidays camp spot, which had 2 resident billy goats. They basically butted horns with each other all day, but when you walked by they stopped and looked at you! The toilet facilities were also home to a massive
wasp colony, however the manager assured us they had never bitten anyone so were ok! The next few days were camped just north of Nambucca at a place called Mylestom, as it was the only other park that was dog friendly (and stayed dog friendly in the school hols...) We explored the surrounding areas and really enjoyed the forests and waterways, the markets and harbor at Coffs but decided that Nambucca wasn’t for us and that we would have to explore further north upon our return from our trip. One of the reasons was it was already getting COLD! Jumpers and tracky pants were the go for most of our time there, another reason was this stretch of coast was decidedly dog unfriendly, with very few beaches allowing dogs, and those that did were only between 5am and 8am and 5pm to 9pm....they called it a timeshare arrangement.
From Mylestom we planned to drive south and camp north of Sydney at Avoca beach, but after driving many hours we arrived to find the place inundated with middle easterners and far more populated than we expected. On top of that a storm was brewing so we decided to drive through the
Cute cows
Inland NSW. Sheba revisited her youth 'lemme atem' night, past Sydney and head down the south coast of NSW to Moruya, near Batemans Bay. It was a long drive and we arrived exhausted at a little rest area just north of Batemans Bay about 2:30am and set up for a nap. The next day we provisioned at Batemans then travelled the short leg south to Moruya, where our camper trailer was due for a service and some minor repairs at the manufacturer’s factory. We camped here for a few days exploring the surrounds, including a little market town called Mogo and had a beer at the ‘Pub with no Beer’! I celebrated my 39th in Moruya and Kym and I had a few beverages to mark the occasion =). It was very windy and colder than Nambucca, so with shivering knees we headed south across the border to Victoria!
First stop was Corringle beach, which sounded promising with free camping between the beach and an estuary, but although dogs were allowed there were signs everywhere advising of 1080 fox bait both in the surrounding bushland and buried in the sand on the beach! The beach baiting kinda ruins it for us so we left the next morning headed
Nambucca rivermouth
Swimming in a rushing tidal eddy for another beach further south. We missed a turn in Sale (I think the navvy was asleep) and ended up in central Victoria on the M1 to Melbourne! Instead of pushing to the city we turned North and took a nice drive up into the hills past Warragul to camp in the Loch Valley at a spot called Poplars. It was in a forest of massive trees which I assumed were Poplars =), was bloody cold and without any facilities there was rubbish and dunny paper everywhere. The site was only about 100kms south of Marysville, which was devastated by fire a week after we were there, so in hindsight we were glad we didn’t linger there. On the way out we picked up some fruit from an orchard who also sold their own Macadamia oil and paste (like peanut paste - only better). The quality of the fruit, especially stonefruit that we were able to procure from house-side stalls was a highlight of the run south of Sydney and through Victoria.
From Poplars we headed for southern Melbourne, drove all the way up around the coast through the city, then south to Geelong and the Great Ocean road! It
was a fantastic drive, a tight winding road along soaring cliff faces with the swell from the waters of Bass Straight pounding the coast beneath, through to the Otway ranges to camp at Johanna beach. This site is almost as far south as you can go on the continent and was where we experienced our first summer frost!!! The surf was massive here and the ocean wild so we did some sightseeing around the Otway’s where we scored a nice roadside pickup - fresh blueberries =) Yumm! Then we drove back up the Great Ocean Road to Torquay, where we did a little shopping. We went to the fabled Bells beach, while totally blown out with the sea breeze still managed to draw 30 or more surfers (not me) into the water despite the atrocious conditions. We then cruised back towards Johanna and stopped for a lager at Lorne in a bar that had a magnificent outlook over the beach and the 36,000,000 people on it - but there were only a few in the pub which was no surprise as they were charging $7.50 for a middy !!!! Talking to some people there we discovered why there were so
City of Melbourne
From the south east many people in all the small townships along the Great Ocean Road, its where all the Melbournians go for Christmas holidays! (Imagine Dunsborough at Chrissy =)). Johanna’s Beach was a free campsite and it literally overflowed on the weekend we were there, most driving down from Melbourne for the last weekend of the school holidays.
From Johanna we took a short hop to Warrnambool, to catch up with an old basketball friend of mine Mick. Along the way we stopped at the 12 Apostles and were amazed by how many people were visiting them. We stayed in Warrnambool for a week, during which we got our car serviced and explored the towns Port Fairy and Nelson on the Glenelg river up towards the SA border.
Mick spent the final weekend camping with us, he showed us around town and we watched some cricket and caught up on old times. It was a nice weekend except coming from the frost a week earlier at Johanna we now were experiencing 43 degree days - the start of the heatwave that brought about the Victorian fires. The heat was sapping so we didn’t do too much apart from swim and cool off. From
Johanna's Beach
South west Victoria. 10 foot plus surf! here we will head into SA and across the Nullaboor.
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