Another relatively long day to drive direct to Byron Bay from our road side overnight stop; Byron Bay is one of Barb’s mostest magical places in the cosmos. Ross can take it or leave it. Ross says it would be a really nice place if it was purged of the lazy dole bludging white Yogi’s stinking up the place. Ross says he works all year to be able to spend a week in Byron Bay, Ross also says he works all year so these wacked out monkeys can live here for free …. go figure; at least they could say thanks.
We stopped for lunch at the historical village of Ulmarra on the Clarence River. A nice little town off the Pacific Highway that reminded Ross a little bit like Walhalla in Victoria. The public park had a nice playground and in the gardens beds around the park were various herbs growing, along with strawberries. Ross checked each strawberry bed for ripe fruit.
We parked in the main street, right outide the local cafe and made our lunch in the camper, which we’re sure didnt impress the locals too much. The Clarence river is enormous. It makes the Murray look like the Dandenong Creek, and has flood indicators 7 metres above the current normal hieght.
There was some historical info on the notice board in the park, including homage to the local King, King Charlie, the King of something important.
A very unique truck/motor home/thing turned up and pulled up next to the park, which facinated Ross.
Barb found the caravan park of choice, at Clarks Beach about a kilometre out of town, was booked out so we wandered off to the caravan park right in town, First Sun. (First Sun .. Byron Bay, most eastern point .. gets the first sun. Ha) First Sun caravan park is in a great spot on a good beach anyway, so no real harm done. We booked for one night and all went for a ride to Clarks Beach. In contrast, Clarks Beach is very tropical were as First Sun has virtually no trees. We found that there was a vacancy tomorrow at Clarks Beach for 3 days, which we booked. It only takes 10 minutes to pack up and Barb was really looking forward to Claks Beach and Barb was very very happy …….. until !!!!
Adjacent to us at First Sun was a family with a 4 year old boy. Daniel made friends with Dylan, and Daniel temporarily swapped Ross’s iPhone for Dylan’s Nintendo DS. Taking something that doesnt belong to you and swap it or something better; who knows where he got that from!!! Daniel was having a ball with the little guy. Ross and Barb met the little guys parents and found some really nice, easy going people that were good company. The dilemma was the following morning we would be yanking Daniel away from his new mate.
The following morning we put off packing up camp until the last minute, to give Daniel some time to play with his new mate before we headed off to Clarks Beach. Within a hour of arriving at Clarks Beach, Daniel had found a new mate, 5 year old Jack. We went for a walk into town and found Dylan at the park with his parents. Daniel and Dylan picked up where they left off.
We spent the afternoon at the beach and threw the new surfboard into the water for its maiden outing. The water was cool, but nice in the mild weather. Barb made her usual sand castle and Daniel played with his “new” sand toys. We seem to buy new sand toys everytime we go to the beach, and then leave them at home everytime we go away, only to have to buy more.
The camp kitchen at Clarks Beach is perched on top of a dune looking out over the beach, with tables and chairs both inside with the plasma TV, and outside to enjoy the view. We cooked dinner at the camp kitchen and eat whilst enjoying the fantastic view.
Daniel is having an absolute ball, which is making this trip such a pleasure.
Wednesday has nothing new to report. The temperture overnight stayed very mild, as did the morning. The wind started to gather some strength and after some wandering around the town we headed to the beach after lunch. The day was quite warm, but the wind took the edge off a bit at the beach. The surf was blown out and the wind got the better of us so we headed into town for a well deserved icecream.
Caravan park is bursting at the seams, so we are lucky (or Barb is lucky, more’s the point) to have been able to get in here.
We packed Daniels Halloween stuff because we knew we’d be away for Halloween. After we set up camp at the First Sun and wandered down here for a look, we noticed a few kids with Halloween costumes on. On the walk back to the First Sun caravan park we decided to wait until about 6.00pm to see if any kids were Halloween’ized before we hastily kitted Daniel up and made a mad dash to the supermarket for lolly stores. Unfortunatley for Daniel, once again, none of the ‘bar hum bug’ people at the first sun made any effort at all. Not to be put off, we will simply wait a further year.
We’re here for another day, before we head south to another favorite, South West Rocks.
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