Northern Rivers, NSW - part IV

Wednesday 13 February 2019

Slept in as I had had a rather bad night, but then I had to get up, because it was getting too hot in the back of the camper with the sun on the windows.  It was going to be a hot day.  In the end it must have been over 40 degrees.

We didn't undertake a lot.  Patricia went to Bunnings with Gail and Kty, but I prefered to  sit in the shade and write my blog.  I had a bit of a nap after lunch, to catch up on some sleep and later walked around the property to take pictures.

After dinner it was an early night for all of us again, because there was a storm brewing and the wind had turned rather cold all of a sudden.  As a matter of fact, it was the first night in months that I needed the cover of my doona. 

Thursday 14 February 2019

We left early, at 7 am, and just as well, because our intended route via Casino to Tenterfield was a no-go.  The bushfire near Tabulam, the one I mentioned earlier, had crossed the highway and the Bruxner was closed off. We had no choice but to make a slight (!) detour via Grafton in the south.  Nothing is really 'slight' here, so we added effectively another 300 km to our trip. Not that it bothered us.  We are no longer in the workforce and it was a beautiful route.

We passed a big 4WD motorhome with a man working on the roof on our way to Grafton.  I thought I vaguely remembered the vehicle from our camp at Coraki and later it appeared that I was right.  The vehicle had had a tyre blow-out and the man (have forgotten his name) was getting his spare tyre down.  What bad luck.

In Grafton Patricia knew a woman who she had visited before with a friend.  The friend's sister, Jackie.  She rang her and asked if it was alright to drop in for a brief visit, which was alright.  

Anyway, we had a cuppa and a chat and we looked at her, rather bizarre, pictures.  She was an artist and had not only painted framed pictures but had also large rows of snakes on the walls of kitchen and laundry.  Not ugly, and I like snakes, but it's not something I would like to see on my walls every day.

At around midday we left and drove approx 50 km west.  We stopped at Lollback Rest Area (#228) to eat our lunch and had a bit of a rest.

Then it was a rather scenic way, but very winding and up and down, via the Gribraltar Range towards our stop for the night: Beardy Creek Heritage Park (#136) just north of Glenn Innes.  As I hadn't checked the route on my GPS we made an unexpected turn before Glenn Innes and came out onto the highway just north of the rest area, so we drove the 10 km south to our stop, as the next stop north was too far away.  I was 5.30 pm when we arrived.  A nice time to get settled for the night.

The Gibraltar Range lookout

It had been a cool day after the earlier 40+ degrees.  So cool in fact, that I closed all the windows and the door during the night.

Friday 15 February 2019

We wanted to stop at Tenterfield and since it was only an hour's drive we didn't leave too early.  My plan to stop at Glenn Innes at the little cafe where they have the nice vanilla slices didn't work out because of our unexpected arrival north of the town, so we let that go. 

We planned to have a look around in Tenterfield and walked through the main street where the shops are. And it must have been our lucky day, because we walked right past a bakery with the best vanilla slices you can think of.  Unusual, but topped with strawberries.  Yummy!

There were also two geocaches in the area and one of them brought us to the famous Tenterfield Saddler  from the song by Peter Allen.  It's a kind of museum in the back room with lots of memorabilia and photographs.

The Tenterfield Saddler

#2069 - Tenterfield Saddler (cache)

The cache was located at the back of the building.  From there we walked back to our vehicles, but with a slight detour into the park as there was another cache hidden. Not the most exciting of hides, but at least it adds to the numbers...

#2070 - Jubilee Park (cache)

Our next stop was at a Warwick picnic area for our afternoon tea and a short rest.  The idea was to make it to Patricia's place in Toowoomba, which was within easy reach and we arrived at 4.30 pm.  If it hadn't been for daylight saving time in NSW we would have arrived an our later, but we gained extra time, which came in handy.

I was going to stay for a few days, but decided to just sleep in the camper.  Colin was home and I would have had to sleep on the sofa bed in the living room, so I opted for a good night's rest in the camper and didn't need to carry all my stuff around either.

Saturday 16 February 2019

A day of rest mainly and catching up on some of the logging of all the geocaches.  Patricia and Colin washed their camper, but first we made a little trip to the shopping centre.  We visited a few shops, bought some clothes, groceries and other little things and had a lovely lunch at Jamaica Blue. 

Upon entering the shopping centre carpark though we heard a loud noise, like something fell down in the back of the van, but we couldn't find anything out of place.  It later appeared that Patricia had missed noticing the beam with the warning of the vehicle height.  As I wasn't driving and thought that Patricia had taken her vehicle there before I had not paid any attention to the surroundings, so had not noticed it either. It cost her over $50 to replace the little hatch of the roof vent!

Sunday 17 February 2019

Not much different from the day before, but minus the shopping spree.  However, Colin, also an avid geocacher, had solved a puzzle for a cache and asked if I wanted to come around for the drive.  I generally don't want to find caches on somebody else's back, so I solved the puzzle first, with a little bit of guidance from Colin, and than we went for the drive.  I also happened to be the one to find it first. ;-)  But then, Colin may have let me.  With 10 times as many finds as I have, he seems to be a little more experienced!

#2071 - Picture That! (cache)

All in all we had a great time, Patricia and I.  I think I have lost count by now how many trips we have made together, at home and overseas, but we're still going strong!

I went home on Monday and took my time.  I made a huge detour, more like a scenic route, and enjoyed the drive.  I had many stops for coffee or tea or just leisure and was home just in time to do my grocery shopping before the shops closed.

Northern Rivers, NSW - part III

Monday 11 February 2019

We had promised to be up early as we wanted to put in a full day of geocaching.  Normally I put up a picture and the name of every geocache I find, but there were too many this time and upon my arrival at home I got too busy to stick to this routine.  What I'll do instead is showing some pictures of interesting caches we found, because that never changes: some geocaches are found in the most interesting places.

We left at around 8 am and drove the triangle Alstonvale - Lismore (west) - Clunes (north) - and back to Alstonvale.

We found and interesting geocache:

  

The cylinder had to be removed by moving a ring upwards along a pvc pipe and once removed numbers, obtained by having solved a puzzle, had to be lined up in order to get to the logbook.  Remember the cylinder in The Da Vinci Code?

Some geocaches commanded a beautiful view:

  

And others brought us to interesting places:

(Unfortunately my phone camera's settings have mysteriously changed to the wrong picture size, hence the elongated pictures.)

Removed headstones lined up in a park

An open-air church

In the morning we found a geocache for which we needed to find a special internet connection which provided us with the necessary information and since this spot was next to a shopping centre we decided to sit down and relax with a cuppa:

Patricia and Gail enjoying their cuppa at Goonellabah

 

Lunch we had at Distractions Cafe, Wyrallah and at the end of the day we ended up at Eltham where we stopped for a cool drink at the pub and found a geocache next door.  That was the last one for the day.  Tally: 32.

At home we sat down at a nice dinner prepared by Gail's daughter Katy.  As it had been a successful, but also tiring day we had an early night and decided not to get up as early the next day.

Tuesday 12 February 2019

We did go in search of geocaches, but this also was a sightseeing day for us.  Gail took us south to Wardell, from there up and to the coast via Ballina to Lennox Head.  From there north to Byron Bay and back again to Alstonvale.

On our wanderings we came across one of the most natural and peaceful cemeteries I have ever seen:

At Ballina we saw the famous Big Prawn:

 And as the Big Prawn (with a geocache of course) was right next to Bunnings all three of us needed a 'Bunnings-fix', so we walked into the store, but went to the cafe first to have lunch.

On the way out I bought a small gas-stove to be used with gas canisters as I did want to have something in reserve if I would run out of gas when not near a re-fill station.

From there we drove to the coast and found a geocache at a cemetery with a million dollar view:

More coastal pictures at Lennox Head:

We looked around a bit at Lennox Head itself and stopped for a much-needed ice cream.  Yes, the days are still very hot.  The shops had lovely wares, but the prices were not to our standard. ;-)

Patricia walking to the car

A rather weird sculpture outside of Lennox Head

Next stop: Byron Bay, THE tourist centre of NSW in summertime, hence my reason of not having visited it earlier.  I don't quite like crowded places. Besides, if you can find parking at all it comes at a hefty price.

Byron Bay's famous lighthouse

We finished our day with a visit of the Macadamia Castle, a huge business selling, yes, you guessed it, only macadamia nut based products.  Outside is a huge knight who guards a geocache.

The Macadamia Castle

 

We were back home by 5.30 pm and sat down with a cool drink and talked about the lovely day we had had.  Geocache tally: 14

Northern Rivers, NSW - part II

Friday 8 February

As members are still arriving there hasn't been much organised yet.  I discover Josephine, Kevin, Sandy, Geoff and Dave.  All people that I know from the Rainbow Lorikeets.

When a space became available I quickly took my chance and topped up my water and emptied the toilet.  I was right again for a few more days.

We had our usual morning and afternoon tea together as well as happy hour and chatted away with our old friends, including new ones of course.  I also played cards during the day (with Bev, Josephine and Juleen) and concentrated on learning to play canasta. Harder than any other card game that I can play as there is a whole new strategy involved.

A sausage sizzle was organised today, so dinner was taken care of and after dinner I walked to the pub, as everyone else felt like a drink.  I met up with Kevin and we chatted the evening away.

Saturday 9 February

Our first official day with organised activities for those who wanted to take part.  For me there is the early morning walk.  Not much more than a walk along the Richmond river and a few streets in town, but enough to enjoy it.  I took some pictures as well.

This would have been a beautiful house in the past

Saw this in someone's front yard

just lovely lichens in a bush

At 10 am we walked to the local museum.  These quirky little museums always have a lot of local background information and never fail to interest me.  People took the opportunity of having us in town and had a 2nd hand book stall at the museum. Not in vain...

A storm approaching in the late afternoon

Most of our group went to the pub for a meal, but as I had been eating out a fair bit I decided to eat 'at home' as did Patricia.  Since we didn't have a hall or other undercover spot with good lighting we played canasta in my camper after dinner.  Sandy taught Josephine and me the finer rules of canasta, but this time we didn't play in pairs but for ourselves.  A whole new ball game again.

Sunday 10 February

We went on another lovely morning walk and of course we played cards again. What else? ;-)

River view

We had a grocery grab with a huge group.  Always good for some extra fun and bottles of wine never fail to disappoint, although this time a food cover proved to be very popular, to the extend that two people started to battle over it, and like the two dogs with a bone a third one joined, but didn't get away with it in the end.

Afterwards I took part in a bit of line dancing and then it was time to pack the camper for our trip to Alstonvale, NSW.

It was only a short trip of just over 30 minutes and at 3.30 pm we arrived at Gail's doorstep.  Gail is Patricia's friend and fellow geocacher.  We also met husband Frank and daughter Katy.  There was plenty of space on the property to park our campers and we had a beautiful view on the horse paddocks, stables and the guinea fowl that walked around.  Gail also is an avid quilter and there was a lot of common interest for both Patricia and her. Of course I got to admire all her beautiful quilts as well and learned something new as a non-quilter.

My dinner consisted of the, still very tasty, doggy bag from the Chinese and after dinner we received a list from Gail with the geocaches that we were going to look for the following day.