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Published: December 6th 2008
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Ok this is the finale and it maybe be a bit of a let down blog for some, because it was a familiar part of the country for both of us, so not much new to discover, plus rellies to visit. Nevertheless, I write it with a mixture of joy and sadness - joy at the memories of an adventure that we will never forget, we've had to pinch ourselves many times to remind us that it was real - both this trip and the last. And sadness that its all over and we are back onto the wheel of the rat race....
Anyway, after leaving Coffs Harbour/Bellingen we drove the short distance to South West Rocks - it was one of mum's favourite places. Its a lovely little seaside village, but not very cosmopolitan despite some high end real estate prices. We stayed and relaxed for a couple of nights and played a game of golf. Then it was on to visit the first of my NSW rellies - we parked the caravan on the front lawn at the Campbells (my aunty and uncle) who live just down the road from South West Rocks in the Kempsey hinterland. We
used the rooftop tent to visit my sister Sally and John, Emily and Sarah who live in the hills, 85km west of Kempsey in a stylish mud brick house they built themselves with a lovely cottage garden. It was great catching up with everyone again in better circumstances that last year.
We stayed at Port Macquarie for the next 2 nights and then down to Forster/Tuncurry where we had just one more caravan spot where we backed onto water - the lake in this instance.....boring (not). The sunsets were magnficent as per the photo and there were lots of places to see from here such as the Sugarloaf Lighthouse which was a very steep walk up to the top, but the view was very worth the strain. As we had experienced at nearly every stop down the east coast, we could see whales and their calves feeding and frolicking not too far off shore (not so easy to get a recognisable photo of however). We never got tired of the spectacle and watched for a quite while in some spots.
More rellies to visit with a stop at Belmont - where we parked the caravan in the Morris'
driveway and stayed in a real bed with real carpet in the bedroom in the home of my cousin Sharon and Paul, Rebecca and Ethan and guest cousin Brett and daughter Jessica. A drive for the afternoon to another cousins Lynne and Grantley who live so close to Lake Macquarie that you could fall in from the back balcony and a drive to Port Stephens for a lovely lunch at the marina.
After goodbyes it was down to Bateau Bay where the weather had had a downturn for the worse and it was cold and rainy so we only stayed a night, then headed to Sydney for 3 nights to catch up with Dom and Deb, Wayne and Mel before a 5 day stay in the nations capital, Canberra. There are not many caravan parks in Canberra and the one we selected was a little on the dodgy side. 2 stars max me thinks. We left the car and rode our bikes everywhere. There are mostly reasonable bike paths but a few less than safe roadside bits too, but we got lots of exercise and survived. Having both read the very good account of Gallipoli by Les Carlyon, we
were both wanting to spend at least a day at the War Memorial, which ended up being a day and a half. We were also in Canberra at the time of Floriade which is the garden festival. The tulips in the Commonwealth gardens for Floriade were amazing. There were tulips in colours I had never seen before.
Then it was over. We had our last caravan meal, last pee in the toilet, last sleep in the bed, last hooking up, last you know what, last washing up.....
Some interesting trip statistics:
Total kms covered this trip: 20075
Total kms covered in total for both trips: 50060
Total litres of diesel this trip: 3388
Total litres of diesel total both trips: 8433
Total cost of fuel $12785.00
Highest diesel cost: $2.45
Top 3 destinations: Broome, Byron Bay and Cape York
Top 3 beaches: Broome, Esperance, Balding Bay (Magnetic Island)
Top 5 Tourist Attractions: Ayers Rock, Horizontal Falls (Kimberley) Whitsunday charter, Barrier Reef (ok thats 4) and Nigaloo Reef WA
Best Pizza - Stefanos (Mildura)
Best meat pie - Cooktown QLD
Best fish and chips - The Entrance, NSW
Best Restaurant meal - Cafe Carlottas - Broome
Worst meal
- Bowling Club Weipa
Best Sunset - Broome WA
Best Sunrise - dont know!
Worst destination - Port Hedland WA
Thank you to everyone for the interest you've shown and the comments and emails. I've enjoyed putting them together I hope you've had some enjoyment from reading them.
Since we returned we have sold the caravan to a lovely couple who love it as much as we did - they bought it based on the photos on the internet. We were very lucky because the bottom has fallen out of caravan sales. Anyway that chapter has now finished and we move on. In a few years we plan on buying an offroad caravan/camper trailer hybrid to tackle some of the more offroad places like the Strezlecki Track, the Birdsville track, the northern part of the Kimberley and Cape York again. Lets us know if you're interested in joining us in any of them.
But until then its WAGS signing off.
PS. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all. This is this years xmas card from us xxxxxxx
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Dominic
non-member comment
Best meal
Hi huys I was hoping my meal that i cooked was going to get best meal.... and the Allambie Pizza, come on it was the way we served it in the box that made it all so much better... Dom