I've never been given the keys to a bank before so I'll treasure them greatly. A delightful place to spend a night and apart from the owners, we were the only ones there. They were delightful - so friendly, helpful and considerate. I would highly recommend their place for anyone who wants a lodging experience, not just a room. And for us, the lodging was the main part of our quick visit plus a lovely [...]
Roadworks have been a large feature of our trip so far. Sometimes the roadworks are longer than the non-roadwork part where it seems to be a giant yard of vehicles and machines. I was wondering in not one of my sanest moments, whether there was a town called 'Roadworks' because there was a lower town speed limit alongside it. Lismore took us out once again into the huge big dipping hills, but this time the [...]
Mount Warning was one of our two main goals today. A three kilometre walk to the top of this mountain had a sense of a volcano about it. A little research shows it was once part of the Tweed volcano, and is supposed to be stunning. Sadly it was closed. At least we were able to drive for some way along the beautiful rain forest valley, across its darkened river. We drove a couple of [...]
We're on our way to the third border that won't let us in, so fortunately for us we don't need to get in, there's plenty for us to see in NSW. We took as many backroads as we could to Byron Bay for glimpses of beaches and headlands. Byron was bigger than we imagined. The downside, especially now, is the large amount of people that you have to avoid - the upside is the greater [...]
A driving free day today which is a regular weekly event. Since Tuesday is my Zoom exercise day starting at 10.30, we need to stay an extra night in the same place, because lodging departure time is 10.00. I also Zoom on Friday but it finishes at 10.30, and so far our hosts have given us that extra half hour. This means we can walk more on Tuesday, so I was able to move into [...]
I am going for pre-breakfast walks now so am walking closer to 15kms daily. It was great finding our way up the rugged reef to view a large natural pool edged with that shiny green that only moss can do. A walk along one beach over that steep Yamba hill to a pretty cove, where the tide prevented us from walking out to sea. A drive to Angourie completed our stay, well nearly. Feeling a [...]
We leave the high steep slopes of the rolling green hills joinng the rainforest mountains of Dorrigo to the lush valley below. A final walk along the Bellinger River was a lovely way to say farewell to a lot of Corrie's distant childhood memories of her dad's majestic hotel in the town's main street. Urunga is our next stop, where the 3km boardwalk is the highlight. And it was, as we leant over the side [...]
My morning pre breakfast walk was around the quite substantial 16 acre property owned by the motel (we learnt the boundaries the hard way by trespassing on a neighbour's land). I've found that to complete my more than 10km daily walk, having a couple of kms under my feet takes the edge off the target. We're following the 'Waterfall Way' today which will take us to the huge waterfall at Ebor. A large rainforest which [...]
"Bellingen is all about restaurants, there's not much else here, and they're very expensive". Not really what we wanted to hear from our tourist information person. "But outside there are lovely walks", she said, as though just realising she was being recorded by the government. "There is a long pier at Urunga where you can walk out to sea and see every kind of ocean folk". If the cameras were rolling I would prefer to [...]
A dinner with old friends whom we had not seen for a while was very joyful, as we swapped stories and joked and laughed like naughty teenagers. They also shared bits of knowledge about Port Macquarie, one that caught their eye was a kilometre of painted rocks around the rocky coastline. As I was on my morning 'beach and rock platform' walk, I read many of the rocks. Generally they were about happy families, death [...]
