What a hard life!

A weekend in paradise begins with having to get out of bed on a Saturday morning, apart from thinking what time it is and what's for breakfast the most important issue is to think is who is making the next cup of tea.

The next issue is the housekeeping because after all caravanners know that after a few days benches need to be wiped and fridges need to be cleaned, washing to be done after doing all of this we felt a sense of accomplishment.

We then traveled to Byron Bay, the parking gods must have been shining on our path as we had the spot at the beginning of the walking track, then trekked up to the lighthouse. On the very steep walk about half way up we saw a lookout to the most Eastern point in Australia. Then we walked up to the lighthouse took some pictures and enjoyed a scoop of Byron Bay Ice-cream in a waffle cone Yum!

Simon and Leigh at the most easterly point

Lighthouse entry back to the keepers house

On Saturday night we enjoyed another dinner at the Mullumbimby RSL in the company of our good friends and a small flutter on the pokies.

Sunday morning began with a sleep in and porridge with brown sugar and banana. I decided that we should look at the town of Nimbin to see what all the fuss was about. The drive was lovely across the Jerusalem Range to Uki then on to Nimbin after an obligatory 'cuppa' on route.

It is still an interesting town with a good community sprit a small amount of peace and love in the air Nimbin is much like any other place out this way trying to make a dollar from the tourist trade. Simon was even offered by some lovely locals the 'Fruits' of the valley - which were of course declined.

Simon cooked a wonderful dinner and we had a loverly fruit platter with dragon fruit on it. The dragon fruit is a red colour it tastes much like a kiwi fruit.

Happy New year

We would like to wish you all the best that you can achieve this coming year - for me it will be to have more time in the caravan with Leigh, don't what we like best - to explore familiar places and find some new places.





This morning we had an early start to have breakfast at Minyon Falls in the Nightcap ranges, with Nareda, Bill and a friend of theirs Maggie. This was a sumptuous affair of bacon, eggs, fresh tropical fruits and berries.



We took the leisurely way home via Bangalow where we stopped for a coffee and a look around the shops.



Our tip - is to watch for the thieves in the hospitality business and walk out when they say 'surcharge for public holidays and weekends' as we know they are touching us in places that they shouldn't.

Day 6 Sea world

The day at Sea World was drove from Mullumbimby to Surfers Paradise - we managed to gain and lose an hour during the day or was that lose and gain, either way meant that we didn't have to get up so early.

The whole day was tremendous it is difficult to identify and pin-point the best parts following are a couple of the highlights.

Generally there is a large amount of environments for reef fish, sharks, rays and the like that you can view both under the water level and in rock pools. There is even the places where you can pat some sting rays, I found them to be interesting as they were slimy.

We then looked at Polar Shores where there was a large polar bear that was swimming in the water doing summersaults. The bears are amazingly large and strong.

The Imagine dolphin show was amazing to watch. They are very intelligent and I wonder who is smarter? them or us? The show was may have been very routine for them, but they seemed to not have any hesitation doing 'Tricks' .

Then we decided to go on some rides these rides involved getting wet and going up and down steep hills boo boo thought that this was scary but it was good fun.

The two rides that we went on were called Bermuda triangle and Vikings revenge flume, fortunately for me the Jet Ski rescue and new roller coaster were not running so Simon couldn't drag me on them.

After all that wandering around the heat was getting a little to much so we decided to take on the Water park and played on the slides including the Tube ride pictured - Boo boo even had lots of fun on them, and went on them all more than once even tho there were queues.

Even if that did cost the frugal caravaners another $10.00 - on the costs the best way to get tickets is if you are a part of an organisation such as the RACV we saved about $15 for the day pass (for 2) and of course they manage to suck that all back with the extras such as 'can not take food' etc. However enough of the whine about cost, sometimes you just have to do it and ensure that you enjoy the day which we did!!

Day 5 Byron Bay

We sorted the van out on Wednesday morning and then dropped the washing to Nareda's to get those domestics out of the way then disappeared to Byron Bay for a wander and to check out the beach.

The rolling hills are leading via the back roads from Mullim into Byron are as magnificent as I remember and it was harder than I last remember but this is the busiest time of the year being new year and all of that! It took 30+ min to drive 6 km into the township - so we have yet to visit the lighthouse and hope to have the time if to fit in before we leave.

Dinner was at the local Mullimbiby RSL club, always great value and in this case the venue was exceptionally clean, the food good and service efficient.

Day 4 Tamworth to Mullumbimby

Departing Tamworth at 7:30 it was good to get going with the long days journey ahead. We stopped at a little town called Uralla which has one of the best set ups for the driver reviver that we had seen it was a building with a small television and tea and coffee of course. It was nice to talk with the locals and interesting that the Driver reviver are self-supporting and largely ignored by governments at all levels (guess there is no method to tax it!)

Armidale for breakfast, continuing the undulating roads up the mountains to Glen Innes following the New England Highway to a town called Guyra where the highest caravan park in the country is located according to the signs.

We travel further down the road to a small place called Deepwater to have a cup of tea and change drivers we decided to stop for a while to rest up for the journey ahead.

Lunch was at Tenterfield where we pulled the van into the Cricket ground and had a cup of tea, we then went to look at the Tenterfield saddler but when we finally found it the store was closed. Many of these small towns could learn from putting some clearer sigage as it was difficult to find and stopping at the information centre with a caravan was not an easy task.

Then we drove from Casino, Lismore,then through to Ballina where we saw the big Prawn while it is still an icon - there is much talk in the local press about keeping the 'Big Prawn'

Traveling from Ballina to Mullimbimby we arrived at our destination in the late afternoon, in fact much later due to the persistent rain and possible longer way via Tenterfield.

Tip - Fuel Dockets

Use these as much as you can ~ especially when you are running on GAS as this 8% ~ 10 % savings depending on the pump price.

Peak hill to Tamworth Day 3

Morning started with early to rise then we set off to Dubbo, arriving at Dubbo we were able to look around the town, fill with gas then headed off to Gilgandra.

At Gilgandra, we stopped at the information centre and looked at the coo wee exhibition about the soldiers who marched of parts of country New South Wales into Sydney to join the forces fighting in WW1.

From Gilgandra we travelled to Coonabarabran was interesting with the large amounts of water on the side of the road I believe that 75% of the water was absorbed into the ground, the roads, rivers and paddocks were surrounded with water.

We stopped for lunch at Coonabarabran for lunch in the van then it was off to Gunnedah.

I wanted to see the big tractor at Gunnedah but we were disappointed because we could not find it.

I needed a cup of tea before Tamworth so we decided that we stop at a small town called Sommerton, we parked the van at the town hall because there was no rest stop.

We could hear loud music playing from an old house there so we walked around the front of the town hall to see all of the names of those who from the town went to war and it was amazing how many of the same family went to serve in both wars from this little town.

The man who was playing the music asked us to stay with him and celebrate his birthday with him we politely declined then headed to Tamworth.

We made it to Tamworth in the late afternoon backed the van on the site because we were late arriving there we set up then went straight to the Golden Guitar.

We then looked around the town for a while before returning to the van for a feast of Pork Chops, salsa and salad.