Blogs from Casino, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania

We took another walk around town this morning and found ourselves completing part of Casino’s Federation Heritage Scenic Walk. We probably walked some of it yesterday too but failed to notice the information boards! This morning, we could have done without finding the fruit bat colony down near the river, ha, ha. Actually, it wasn’t too bad seeing as there has been rain recently; they weren’t too smelly! We learnt that Casino was established on the Richmond River in the 1830s by Henry Clay and George Stapleton when they laid claim to 30,000 acres in the Richmond Valley. The site was on/near the original crossing point on the Richmond River and had been colloquially known as ‘The Crossing Place’. Henry and George however decided to name their property ‘Cassino’ after the Italian town of Monte Cassino. ... read more

Back on the road, today we headed up the coast to Sawtell for lunch. After a walk on the beach to gain our exercise goal for the day we lunched at The Kiosk which we discovered when we visited Sawtell in June last year. We couldn’t go past the BLATs. Delicious! We watched a table of Karens who rearranged the tables to accommodate their group. The staff were OK with this, I think it happens all the time to fit different sized groups, but they were specifically asked for an area to be kept clear so that staff could circulate. Of course, the Karens ignored this request and effectively blocked the area they had been asked to keep clear … and then sang a cappella which was weird. Or maybe impromptu singing in public only seems ... read more

We took the Winnebago (the Watergate Mk2) back to Narabeen to enjoy the beach for a few days. Sydney RV paid for us to stay there for 4 days to make sure everything was ok. It was an enjoyable few days and we bought a few thing to dress up the motorhome and make it feel like home. We tried to hold off getting back to Casino for as long as possible so we stopped of a Coffs Harbour for almost a week, we stayed at Sapphire Beach it is a great little park and spent the days walking along the beach and swimming. We arrived home in Casino on the 16th of January 2009 and are now currently set up at the Casino Village until 6th March. We have a few house sitting jobs around ... read more

Everything is on track. Settlement for the house is on the 9th of May and all the last minute modification to the van are underway. We have decided to invest in a brand new Nissan Patrol. the Old one is doing fine and has given us no trouble but we had the opportunity to buy a new one at a great price so now have a vehicle that is under warranty ready to go for the trip and the 2001 model can retire to a good home and not pull the Watergate behind it anymore. Julie now only has 3 weeks to go before finishing work and the kids only have 48 days of school and counting. Steve finishes on the 29th of June and then away we go.... read more

Finally after a lot of blood sweat and renovation tears the house is FOR SALE...We are hoping it will sell quickly. If it has not sold by the end of April it will be close to catastrophic- no only joking but we will be looking at another way to fund our trip so fingers crossed. So if there is anyone out there who would like to buy a great house in Casino check out the FOR SALE ad on the web at www.diysell.com.au and look under property ID P14798. Steve and I are giving the private sale a go before we give it to an agent. The kids have their exemption to attend school for the second half of the year and they are all getting excited now... WISH US LUCK...... read more