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The Big Banana
The original big thing - that's the banana - no the yellow one Russell - So we didn’t quite make it as far as Byron Bay on our first day but hey we are new at this. We had awoke cold and didn’t get out of bed until 9:30 - but that’s OK coz we are already half way to Byron, right? We set up the van for the off and were out of there by 10:45. Not the fastest turn around but Lins did have to wait for the cleaner to reopen the shower block. Seriously who closes down the facilities during prime check out time!
We were back on the road and heading for lunch in Coffs Harbour. By 1pm the sign for Port Macquarie (about 150km or about 100 miles short of Coffs Harbour) so we thought we would give into our tummies and stop for lunch. We had heard good things about Port Macquarie so were happy to see it for ourselves. Well on a Sunday afternoon I can tell you that Port Macquarie is basically closed. Coles was open which gave us an opportunity to get some groceries and so was Target enabling that all important blacket purchase to be made, but apart from that it was pretty
Maclean
Och hey - where's the hery cooo much shut. Since it was so quiet we decided that Lins could have a practice with the van in the Supermarket car park. But soon enough it was time to be getting on. We want to be in Byron Bay by sunset!
The road went on mile after mile and soon enough the sun started to head for the horizon. Fortunately the sign for Coffs Harbour arrived. OK I know it wasn’t Byron Bay again but hey this is a much bigger country than we appreciated and we were pretty clear it was big. Even New South Wales takes a while to cover.
We checked into a nice campsite, as after the decidedly dodgy one in Newcastle we wanted to be safe. This campsite was amazing with a huge pool, en-suite campsites and the best camp kitchen ever. It even had ovens and microwaves. Happily settled in we headed for the bright lights of town. As usual the campsite was a bit of a walk from town. Along the road we almost bumped into a huge spider’s web, complete with Spider eating another spider. We gave it a wide berth.
Sunday night in Coffs Harbour is clearly
a quiet one. A couple of restaurants were open and the local hotel but we decided it was probably best if we had an early night and headed back to the campsite.
The next day we were determined to get to Byron Bay! We set out with a vengeance. 2 km on the road we spotted the Big Banana so how could we not stop. The Big Banana is over 40 years old and is the original Big Thing in Australia. And boy have Aussies gone big since. At the Banana there is a map of all the big things in Oz. They range from pineapples and mangoes to huge boxing crocodiles, Ned Kellys and Capitan Cooks. We have to see more of them so the hunt for big things is on.
Around lunch time we had reached the small Scottish town of Maclean. Here they are committed to being a little bit of antipodean Scotland. They even have their road signs written in Gaelic and their lampposts sporting their own tartan- something any self respecting Scots person would hate! (Do you think I’m backward!) We parked up and walked down the street. It was a pleasant town
Byron Bay
The wonderful sunset - no sunrise pics! and we stopped for some lovely sangers in a local deli.
Back on the road to Byron we made good progress. We even managed to get there!!!! Two days late but we got there. Even better than that as we were coming into town we saw a Big Prawn! Big Thing number two.
We camped up in a site next to the beach and went for a walk through town. The beach and the bay here are absolutely beautiful. The town itself is a little obsessed with backpackers but they appeared to make up the majority of the town so I guess that figures. As the sunset we headed back along the beach where the hippies were drumming a goodbye to the sun and smoking fragrant cigarettes. Byron has been popular with the beatnik community for decades and looking at some of the tie-dye brigade dancing in the sunset I would say they are the same hippies that have always been here - like a colony. Either that or it is where hippies come to die.
That sunset is beautiful though and being the most easterly point in Australia it is also the best place to see
Byron Bay 2
And in the daylight the sunrise. Well we considered it but then realised we would have to be up at about 5:30 and Petunia has a bit of a squeaky fan belt issue that I don’t think the rest of the park would appreciate at that time of the morning. That’s our excuse anyway. The stars were also a sight to behold. After years of living in first London and then Sydney I had forgotten how wonderful they could be. You could see the Milky Way.
Next morning it was time to head for Queensland and Brisbane - with a quick stop on the Gold Coast first.
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