Two nights and a day in the Grafton area.

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Sunday 26^th April 2015



We left our lovely camp area and stopped at IGA to get another half dozen T-bone steaks before continuing on north. We had no set destination, we intended driving until we found somewhere we wanted to stop.

NSW certainly can’t brag about it’s roads, they are atrocious! We seemed to go between sections under construction, where the speed limit at 60kph had no relevance to the conditions. The roads were usually bumpy with no sight of anybody working. Were the limits for the non-existent workers or for the rotten roads?

We diverted off the highway to see Nambucca Heads. What a waste of time. The road in was closed, the detour by-passed the Information Centre, and the roads were narrow, hilly and poorly signposted. We managed to refuel and ended up back on the highway without seeing anything.

Coffs Harbour was a big disappointment, not overly interesting and very crowded at the harbour area. Here we parked at the back of the so-called parking area, just a grassy paddock. We looked through the market there; similar to others we have seen this trip. The old jetty in the bay was interesting, the rest was so,so.

After lunch in the van, we continued on to Grafton. By now we were both a little short tempered, the road and lack of scenery not helping our moods. After finding that the Showgrounds were unavailable to stay at we finally ended up at the Gateway Village Caravan Park.

Life became good again! For $22/night we had a concrete pad, in a green, tropical garden, with modern facilities. We booked for 2 nights, needing to chill out and rest a bit.



Monday 27^th April 2015



Off to the Information Centre this morning, after which we were distracted for some time by Macca's next door where we had morning tea of toasted banana bread, muffin and cappuccino.

The Information Centre didn’t help a lot, the chap there telling us that the places we wanted to go had a lot of shops and cafes! Judy said we don't come here to see shops and cafes! But over coffee we decided to go to the coastal town of Yamba, 58kms away, hoping there are more than shops and cafes. We were both surprised to find we were driving through sugar plantations all the way to the beach but research told us that by 1885 102 sugar mills operated. Only 2 survive today including one which is the oldest operating mill in Australia.

The town itself is a typical holiday type town, with coffee shops, dress shops and luckily a couple of camping shops. Rags managed to buy a replacement hat at one of these, his last hat being left, he can’t remember where - perhaps somewhere in Port Macquarie. He wisely chose a canvas one rather than a felt one, this being a third the price and with his record of losing them was probably a good decision.

The Clarence River opens into the ocean here and we drove to the point just near it. Surfers had a pretty good wave here, even though there was an on-shore breeze. We climbed the rocks and hill here to take some photos before reaching the Pilot Station with the lighthouse there.

We checked out the price of prawns in town before settling on the Fisherman’s’ Coop, where we had a fisherman’s basket for lunch as well as buying some prawns for dinner, and sea mullet fillets for dinner tomorrow.

The meal we ordered was much too big for us to eat all of it, instead we left most of the chips and took them back with us to reheat for tonight.

We returned back to the van by a different route, firstly passing through the town of Maclean, the ‘Scottish Town in Australia’. So called due to the large number of Scottish immigrants who settled there. Some of their descendants still live there, the heritage embraced by the light poles in the town having clan tartans painted on them and the shops and cafes decorated with Scottish banners.

From here we drove to the town lookout from which we had views all along the coast. A little below this was the Pinnacles, a group of rocks with a view of the town below it. The light was against us making photography difficult.

Just out of town we caught the vehicle ferry across the river after which we drove through more scenic countryside with green paddocks with grazing cattle and sugar plantations. A fire was burning on one property, these are lit by farmers to reduce the foliage on the cane before harvesting.

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Photos

Coff's Harbour
Another iconic sign.

Coff's Harbour
The main jetty in the town. It was once an important port but now road transport has taken over.

Yamba
The serves were so generous here we ended up reheating the leftovers for dinner.

Burning off the sugarcane.
They do this before harvesting.

Yamba
These sculptures are at the entrance where the Ferguson River reaches the sea.

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Yamba
Sounds like you found a town more to your liking without too many shops. The food sounded worthwhile also. Happy travels