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Published: February 14th 2010
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By now we’ve travelled a lot over this huge country but I have to say that the only place in Australia I would move to like a shot is where Joe’s uncle Harry and his wife Terri live in the hills behind Byron Bay, Northern New South Wales. It helps that they have 65 acres of largely unspoilt bush land with a creek running through the bottom and wild koalas, wallabies, platypus and goannas wandering around. It is also a nice climate, being sub-tropical and very lush, with hills which afford some amazing views. Although they have their own private hideaway, they are also only 20 minutes from the beach and a reasonably large town, and just 2 hours from Brisbane. There’s even a fairly large number of Christadelphians. All we need to do now is somehow move all our family and friends over there, oh and find a job!! Hmm...
For now we made do with just a week. Although we had visited twice before, that was 10 years ago, so we had lots of exploring to do and lots of catching up with the family, including the new addition cousin Bella, only a few months older than our
Bella.
First trip was to the lighthouse at Byron - the most easterly point on mainland Australia and a lovely spot. Next we visited Minyon Falls, in the Nightcap National Park, a lovely walk but slightly spoilt by the fact that we all got leeches on us (apart from Joe who was quite upset at being left out!) Brunswick Heads went much better, hired a kayak and paddled down the river. That evening was Christmas Eve so we went to nearby Bangalow for the market at which the family have a falafel stall. Great local music, rides and of course good food.
On Christmas Day the extended family came over. Unfortunately it rained but we had a lovely meal indoors instead, and even saw a wild koala in the tree... We had a more successful waterfall walk on Boxing Day, through the beautiful rainforest to Protestors Falls where the first successful anti-logging campaign saved the rainforest in 1979. The water hitting the pool made a great rainbow effect. The drive back through the hills gave us some fantastic views and further cemented my love of the area.
It was still raining on the Sunday when we packed
up the tent. Lots of ducking indoors to escape the downpour meant that we didn’t leave for Hat Head until 1pm with a five hour drive ahead of us. We were staying at Terri’s sister’s place while they were away which was really good (except for the fact that the neighbour told us he’d seen a funnel web spider in the wheelie bin!) Unfortunately it rained for most of our stay at Hat Head, although we did manage to get out for some walks between showers.
From there we drove down to Rathmines, a further five hours south and about two hours north of Sydney. We were going to our third Bible School of the trip, although this time we snuck in about half way through! It was on the shores of Lake Macquarie which was lovely, we even saw a small sting ray swimming beneath us on the board walk, oh and the studies were good too!
We drove back with our good friends Peter and Rachael to their house in Sydney which we were using as our base for the next month. They have two kids the same as ours and they all got on well
together. On our first trip to the city, we took a ferry from Circular Quay to Manly, one of the Northern City beaches. Next we visited the Olympic Park where we also walked the Bricks Work Loop, 18m above ground and containing info both about making bricks and the rare wildlife. As the next day was wet we drove to the Powerhouse Museum - a bit like the Science Museum and the Transport Museum rolled into one and very interactive. Joe was especially interested in the cars and planes, although I was more disturbed to find that the special exhibit was on the 1980s, surely they can't be long enough ago to be in a museum!! Highlights included a lesson in how to do the Thriller dance and an old exercise book of Michael Hutchence from INXS with song lyrics and his plans for world domination!
On the Friday we drove down the coast to Culburra where some friends of Peter and Rachael were staying to spend the day with them. We went via Kangaroo Valley where we stopped briefly at some more waterfalls. The next day Rachael and I took the kids swimming in the Olympic Pool which
was packed but good fun.
We were planning to leave on the Sunday to spend a couple of days driving the long way around the coast to Melbourne. We were duly up early to pack the car before leaving for the meeting. However, when we set out from there in the afternoon, we hadn't gone more than 5 minutes before I noticed that the air conditioning wasn't working and when we looked the temperature needle had shot right up - the radiator had sprung a leak. Needless to say that put paid to our journey for the day but fortunately we were able to get it fixed the next day and by Tuesday morning were on the quicker inland road down south...
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