Jimi and Mazzy Adventures

Our stay at Coffs was poetically finished by a massive downpour in the morning.

After literally twenty days of fantastic weather, day twenty-two put an end to that in no uncertain terms. But it was all good. We were on the road, not even at the halfway point and we were all appreciating how fortunate we are to be doing this. So who cares if it rains or not.

We’d had a great time so far, and the rain belting down on the van, and draining off the awning a’la Manchester stylee was just the tiniest of blips on our trip. In some ways it was good, because we had been wondering when our luck was going to change, and rather it was in the temperate Coffs Harbor than somewhere freezing.

So that ended our brief stay at Coffs, now it was time to move on again.

We were now heading towards Cabirita Beach to catchup with Craig and Dawn, but the journey looked a touch long so we had pencilled in a stop at Skennards Head, which is close to Ballina.

Long trips in the van were not fantastic, as it was super-noisy, rattly and the van has pulled to the left from day one, so we have been trying to break up trips of over 400K’s or four hours of driving. That meant our trip to Cabarita would be interrupted by a stopover at somewhere close to Ballina, and we had managed to book in at a Big 4 Ballina Headlands caravan park, which as it turned out was actually Skennards Head. It seems to be a common theme that caravan parks label themselves as the nearest recognised town, even if they are a few k’s out. But that wasn’t a problem, and the park was acomodating in that they agreed to let us stay one night and not a two-night minimum. I think the fact that we are travelling off-peak is definitely helping us. In fact, we are avoiding crowds for that reason which is also adding value to the trip.

On the way to Skennards Head, we chanced upon Mclean, which as it turns out was a fantastic little stop.

Mclean sits on the Clarence river, and as it happens was settled by the jocks many years ago, and it has held on to some of its scottish traditions ever since. It has some pretty spectacular views of the Clarence and felt like a thriving little town. We had a quick feed and a wander round, as well as driving across the bridge over the Clarence “because we can”.

Mclean was a nice little break, and I would recommend it if you are in this neck of the woods.

Next up was our final destination of Skennards Head, and we made reasonable time, which allowed us the have a dip in the pool (unheated, bloody freezing), the spa, and the kids had a race around the park on peddle-carts, burning off much needed energy. All in all a nice little stop, and immaculate park. We could of stayed longer etc etc.

Next stop …. Cabarita Beach, see you then.

Coffs was a two day stopover, but since we arrived lateish on the first day, which is all part of the fun, we only realy had the one full day to do “stuff’. For that reason, we kept it local. The kids had more time in the pool (still bloody freeing), we had a great walk along Park Beach which included watching some bad weather roll in, and we hit the camp kitchen for tea.

The Coffs Big 4 was a great place to stay. I also met another new best mate in Shaun from Adelaide who was travelling round Oz in his newly purchased van. Shaun was another of the newly retired who had sold up and committed to a life on the road. Moving round free-camps, Showgrounds and Caravan Parks. It’s definitely an interesting take on life. So much so, that Belinda has agreed that we can sell up and do exactly that. So if you know anyone who wants a house in Kurralta Park, please let me know.

Coffs also introduced us to some Mancunian style weather. Basically, it bombed it down and we had water streaming off the awning. Not a big issue other than curtailing our outdoor activities and in the bigger picture of things we had been very lucky with the weather so far and this was day 21.

As the rain disrupted the walk, it was time to head back to the safety of the van.

It was a beautiful beach and a great walk and kickaround regardless of the weather, and as already mentioned it was great to be in a climate with warm overnight temperatures.

It was also nice to not have anyone receive a bee sting (noting that me and Belinda walked on this very beach roughly twenty years ago only for Bindi to pickup a sting!).

Other than the excitement of doing our laundry-catchup and cooking up a a bbq, that was pretty much it for day 21 at Coffs.

The Title of this post seems very strange but this day was quite mesmerising and veiwful :() We had heaps of fun entering Coffs Harbour! Coffs harbour has a MASSIVELY INSANE Water Park and a massive fun play area including a bouncy pillow!

Well, I… definately… woke up… normaly…. okay fine- I woke up at 3:37am 😐 Then I didn’t get back to sleep until…. ok fine- well I didn’t get back to sleep Anyways I was very tired so I was awake for the rest of the morning but then everyone else woke up so I woke up too 🙂

After I woke up, I got changed and then we packed up and left to Coffs Harbour! We soon arrived and O M G ! ! ! It was like (can’t explain it) the best water play area on EARTH! We reversed into our site and then atraight away I flipped and turned out of meh car-seat to meeeeeeeeee suitcase and got my bathers on as well as Jimi 🙂 As you can guess now, well yes, we went in the POOL! It was so fun! I loved it soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much!!!!!!!!!!!!

After our big swim and play, me and Jimi headed back extremely tired and had tea quickly then plumped off into bed 🙂

Day twenty had a lot in store for us. Ebor, where we were currently staying is also home to some spectacular waterfalls, we will also be completing the remainder of the B78, including a tricky eighteen kilometre bendy-windy section and we are hoping to finally arrive in Coffs Harbour.

The Ebor waterfalls were literally one kilometre from the pub where we were staying, so was a quick stop once we had checked out. They were surprisingly good, set in yet more spectacular scenery. Despite having seen near enough twenty days worth of scenic stuff, the Australian landscape continues to impress and Ebor falls were no exception.

The only issue was that the lower falls were blocked off, which included a 1.5K walk which would have been great to do, especially having seen the setting for the falls. So we only got to see the main fallls, but it was still well worth a visit.

Since the lower falls could not be accessed, and a scenic lookout of blue-mountain proportions was four-wheel drive only, it was time to move on. Ebor was great, the pub was basic with a good home-cooked feel and was a great little stopover.

Onto the Dorrigo and the remainder of the B78.

The B78 (Waterfall Way) to Dorrigo felt like a continuous climb through more great scenery.

It was a shame we had to drive through it, rather than stop every five minutes, and when you check the map its obvious why it was so scenic. It is literally surrounded by national parks.

Cathedral Rock, Dorrigo, Junuy Juluum, Bellinger River to name but a few. Pretty much endless and spectacular every step of the way.

Eventually we arrived at Dorrigo and took a look at the Dangar Falls. These were also pretty spectacular.

It looks like we didn’t get any family pics here. Mazzy did not have her walking legs on today, and so we were a bit pushed for tim (she would not leave the van). But it was a great stop all the same. And to be fair, the kids have been amazing with their engagement of all of the scenic stuff and especially all of the walks, so the odd wobble or two is fully understandable.

Next stop was the Dorrigo Skywalk and a walk round the rainforest. And a feed and hoping for a fully recharged Mazzy.

Actually, the feed came next coz the kids were suddenly ravenous and we found ourselves at the mercy of the cafe at the Dorrigo Rainforest Centre. However, far from being the usual cafe offerings for captive audiences it was really good, homecooked food. Well done DRC we would definitely eat here again.

There are a few pics here of the Skywalk, and the rainforest walk. Well done Mazzy on recovering her walking legs. In fact she was back on form racing through the forest, yet exploring and occassionalky photographing at the same time (its a Mazzy thing!)

And for us that was Dorrigo. Although there were longer walks to other waterfalls which i’m sure would have been great, it was unfortunately time to move on (yet again). Dorrigo had been great, we walked for a couple of hours and it was a fantastic mini-stop.

We now moved on to the next section of the B78, which was allegedly the tricky part, and we still had to arrive at our next destination which was Coffs Harbour. It turns out the B78 is up there with any of the scenic drives that you could imagine, as we descended through the mountains and rainforest, over creks and alongside rivers. It was actually a pleasure to drive and I would love one day to do it again (maybe not in a big wobbly happy-van though).

After we completed the B78 we fiiiinally worked our way to Coffs, and after a wrong-turn we arrived at the Coffs Harbor Big 4. As a complete contrast to Ebor and Tamworth, and before that Coonabarrabran, the kids had a Caravan Park full of stuff to play with.

The freeing cold pool was fully engaged, bt significantly it also meant overnight temperatures well into double figures. Although everything so far had been great the warmth was very welcome.

So at the start of the day we packed up our stuff and went to the golden guitar. Then, we jumped back in our van and drove on and on and on to Wollomombi Falls. It was a very tall waterfalls which descends into a river. This specific waterfall is on the waterfall way road which is a road with a lot of waterfalls on.

After that, we drove a short way to Ebor which is a tiny town. At Ebor we stayed at the back of the pub on some grass, literally, that’s how small the town is.

For dinner we went into the pub and had dinner there. I had a big steak and had ice cream for dessert. It was another very cold night so we all went back to the van and went to bed early.

Before dinner me and Dad were kicking the soccer ball around and I accidentally kicked the ball into the creek near the pub and Dad had to hold me so I didn’t fall in while I got the ball out from the muddy creek.

Day 19 meant we had to say goodbye to Tamworth.

Another very enjoyable stopover most definitely helped along by a pub visitation, old friends and immaculate weather. But eight weeks is not such a long time to do what we are doing, and so we were off once again.

This time, we had decided that the Tamworth to Coffs Harbour trip was a bit too long of a drive, especially in the pan-shaker that we had hired, and so we opted to split up this leg by adding one extra stopover. Additionally, the road to Coffs was the B78 Waterfall Way and there were one or two reports of this being on the tricky side, especially for blokes who work in IT driving big vans. So with this in mind, we managed to book into the Ebor Hotel. This was basically a pub with a small field behind it which served as a powered caravan park. It was functional, cheap and like every night for the past few weeks was bloody freezing.

The trip out of Tamworth was another specutacular drive, through the backroads of Australia, both green and mountaneous with epic amounts of scenery.

Having wised-up to how sapping some of the long drives can be, we stopped about half way at a small place called Uralla, apparently famous for Captain Thunderbolt. We stopped at Alma Park, whch looks like it was also a bit of a soldiers memorial for Vietnam and the Korean War. Floral wreaths and tributes were still present due to ANZAC day a couple of days earlier. With the autumnal colours added to the mix, this was a fantastic little stop and a classic example of the beauty of these tiny Australian towns.

This was another spotless Australian town. The park was great and we even had a kickabout, the kids had a play (even made a couple of friends) and then we moved on.

The next stop were the Wollombombi falls. These were on the B78, and pretty spectacular, although they took a bit of finding especially with dodgy GPS directions, but they were well worth it. Unfortunately, you can’t spend hours trecking round every Waterfall and so the stop was pretty short and sweet, but it’s another place well worth a follow up.

Dads’special trecking mate

And that was that. We soon hit the B78 once again and found our next overnight stop which was the Ebor pub. Yet another cold night, and I seem to remember the inside temp of the van being around six degrees in the morning. We were almost used to it, but warmer temperatures will be welcome when they finally arrive.

Tomorrow we are hoping to look at Ebor falls, spend some time at Dorrigo and finally arrive at Coffs Harbour and some warmer weather. More posts to follow ….

Day 18 was our second day in Tamworth after a pretty long drive the previous day where we arived fairly late and didn’t have time to do too much, so today was a day for looking round and finding things to keep the kids occupied. Luckily Jimi and Mazzy are happy in the outdoor environment and especially around animals so we had a couple of things lined up.

First up was Bicentennial Park, which had a load of stuff for the kids to play, as well a pretty good cafe and some water-play stuff. We may have had a lucky escape when we discovered the Water Play was out of action, but the kids let off steam regardless and me and Belinda relaxed with a cuppa. It was another day of perfect weather with clear blue skies and temperatures hovering about twenty. Van life and the roadtrip have so far been fantastic.

Next up was Tamworth Marsupial Park which was set in the fooothills amongst some beautiful scenery. Navigating these old-style windy bendy roads was increasily easy, especially havig surivived Kangaroo Valley a few days earlier, and with the schools being back parking was also a breeze.

Mazzy did her usual ‘Kangaroo-whisperer’routine and it was a good afternoon had by all.

That was most of the afternoon taken up, apart from tracking down a sports shop which sold footballs so Jimi could have a kick around with his Dad. As we found out a few days earlier, New South Wales is big on rugby and to some extent AFL, but not so much on the round-ball variety.

Anyhow, the footy was purchased and it was back to base (well Paradise caravan park to be precise). I had nother chat with my new best mate (there are loads of those at Caravan Parks) who was a bloke from Vic, newly retired, travelling round for a few months, maybe a year with his newly purchased motorhome. One of the things that you discover when traveling round these parks is that so many people, whether it single old-fellas, or newly retired couples, or families with young kds in tow, are looking for a time-out. Plenty of them are intent on spending the rest of their life on the road. Some have no plan, some return because they miss the grandkids.

But its interesting to chat to these people, and for us its been like an undiscovered world full of friendly people happy to tell you their story.

Anyway, onto the remainder of “the Tamworth Experience’ (good name for a dodgy sixties covers band?).

There is an old school friend of mine, Janine Bailey-Cooper, who I had not seen for thirty one years and we had pencilled in a reunion at one of the local pubs later that night, the Tamworth Arms. Small world etc etc, but Janine was a good friend at Moss Park which we attended from 1976 to 1980, and we did also bump into each other at South Trafford College a few years later. And here she is living in Tamworth of all places, and here were are on our roadtrip.

So with thirty one years without contact it was a great catch up indeed. We put the world to rights (can’t beleve were not all in political leadership roles) had a couple of beers and obviously talked about the good old days, as well as one or two friends that had left us or simply gone astray. Thank you Janine and family. In an almost mega Adelaide type moment, we thought our “firey-bloke’might have known Janines”Firey-bloke” but i don’t think the dots fully lined up. Long story short, Janinies huband Tom is the Zone Commander for Fire and Rescue NSW and our bloke is the Adeaide Metropolitan Commander.

And that was our whistle-stop tour of Tamworth. Like so many places, we are doing our best to skim the surface but we have to move on (comfy hotel bed awaits us in Cairns – gotta keep moving!).

Today we had a a blast at the biggest ‘something’ in Tamworth, can you guess what it is? This is a hint – Fun and big! After that we encountered marsupials and this kangaroo I met just wouldn’t leave me alone 😂. I also loved the kangaroo as much as it loved me 😁.

BROOOOM! BROOOOOOOOOM! The highway is incredibly close to our spot at our caravan park, so every morning I am disturbingly woken up by the sound of the highway 😠😤but at least it was only one day 😀 Soon I gradually opened my eyes properly and prepped for the day 🙂 . We were going to the biggest play****** in Tamworth so we got very stretchy and comfy clothes. When we arrived me and Jimi both ran to the slides and we were at the…. BIGGEST PLAYGROUND IN TAMWORTH! It had 6 slides and so many other things!

We soon finished up at the Playground and we drove to this amazing marsupial park in the place where water flows downwards. We first saw the Emus then Birds, guinea pigs, kangaroos and cockatoos! That was super fun but I was so pooped after this I fell asleep in the van 😐 . I soon hobbled off to bed and fell asleep in the speed of light :O

This day was incredibly fun and I enjoyed it alot as well. Check out the rest of our blog for more funny posts and descriptive moments 🙂 Also follow our blog for any new blog posts, updates and more 🙂 .

So as the previous few posts have mentioned, Day 17 saw us leave the much loved snoozefest that was Coonabarabran, and head out to Tamworth. We had a slightly longer drive ahead of us, but we were well rested and really enjoying this part of Australia.

Although the trip was only flagged as a couple of hours, we know from experience that detours, lookouts and nature breaks come thick and fast. And we’d already spent a couple of hours detoring to the ‘bungles.

There were so many national parks within striking distance, but we had to move on and from what we have seen so far, you would need a couple of years to take all this in. So even though we have eight weeks, it makes you realise that in some ways, it is no time at all.

National Parks that we skipped on the way to Tamworth included Pillaga, Warabah and Tinkrameanah. So it should have been no surprise to us just what a scenic drive this turned out to be. Taking the B56 Oxley Highway, we climbed up into the mountains, which seemed to be a common theme of our trip so far. When we finally dropped out of the mountains the views continued. There are some dodgy phone-pics attached (trying to find some proper camera pics).

We had one quick lunch stop at Mullaley, where we parked alongside the local park, before completing the journey and reaching Tamworth.

When we finally arrived in Tamworth, we checked in to the Paradise Caravan Park.

The kids attempted to brave the unheated pool, me and Bindi grabbed a well-earned cuppa and we managed to sneak in the Oxley lookout. This was pretty spectacular, looking back over Tamworth to the mountain ranges that we had passed on the way in.

So that just about sums up Day 17 which was another spectacular, B-road belter of a day.

I will add better photo’s when I find them, but for now, hopefully you can enjoy this post.

More to follow soon.

Day 16 saw us arrive in Coonabarrabran.

This was originally intended as a stopover between the Dubbo-to-Tamworth part of the trip, and we were looking at another guided tour of the nightsky. However, Mazzy was still thawing out from the Dubbo Observatory experience so a second stargazing session was a non-starter.

But to be honest, it didn’t matter. Coonabarrabran, like so many of these remote little towns was a welcome gem for all of us. The caravan park was pretty old, but it was immaculate and spacious. We even got to pick our own site, where we opted for one óut the back’, surrounded by the gum trees and not much else.

What Coonabarrabran also showed us, was that we needed a break, and being set amongst such a tranquil settling literally set us off to sleep. I think I grabbed a well-earned snooze, Jimi read a book with Bindi and Mazzy did Mazzy-things. It wasan immaculate, cloudless day, temeratures somewhere round twenty degrees. Not such a bad life is it!

Day 17 came round and it was time to go.

We were now moving onto Tamworth, but first of all we were going to see some of the Warrumbungles. We didn’t have a huge amount of time but we picked out the Whitegum Lookout as somethng worth checking out.

Well, so far this trip has thrown up plenty of surprises and the Warrumbungles were another one. They were spectacular to say the least but very non-touristy.

After another batch of mountain-driving we were there, and in awe of the scenery.

Actually, at one point on the way we stopped the van on the side of the road and starting taking loads of photos.

Australia’s backroads, amazing weather and out of the blue appears the Warrumbungles. It was only an hour or two walking round but if left an impression on all of us.

And that ladies and gentlemen was the Warrumbungles.

Unfortunately it was time to move on. It would have been great to have spent a day or two here, so its another one for the to-do list.

Our next stop was Tamworth and same old, same old, amazing and unexpected scenery on the way as we were unaware just how scenic Tamworth’s environment is. I’ll drop that into another post so stay tuned.