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.