Port Macquarie to Hervey Bay
July 5 to July 17, 2008
We've hit the coast at last at Port Macquarie .....
The Sundowner Breakwall
Tourist Park is right on the
breakwater to the Hastings River and the ocean beach is walking distance of the
town. The town of Port Macquarie has really grown up and out since we were
there in 1999, but it is still a well set out town with lots of new housing estates
and beautiful beaches.
It was time for a game of golf at Port Macquarie Golf Club. This is a really nice golf course with wide fairways and very good putting greens. It is hilly in parts but the exercise did us good walking it , instead of using a cart. Match play was the game with Rob being 2 up at the end of the round.
We again caught up with Luke and Alison Goodwin and their children. They have a house at Lighthouse which has stunning views from their family room/living area right down the coast. A dinner out on our last night was on the banks of the Hasting River and afterwards a treat for Meg, Will and Ned at the ice cream parlour where we said our goodbyes as we were moving on the next day.
Sawtell, our next stop ....
We headed further north to Sawtell and the tourist park
which was set amongst gum trees and beautiful maleucas. There was a huge
reserve and crochet green, and the track next to us led down to the beach. We
didn’t throw a line in but they were catching snapper from the rocks. Instead
we tried to learn the rules of crochet, but got a bit lost in the translation.
Sawtell has a nice feel about it with a tree lined median strip and a village
atmosphere. There is the usual cafes and gift shops and a very large RSL
club. On advice, we visited
the RSL for the free meat tray raffle held each Wednesday. The place was packed
for the good food, well priced wines and of course the free raffle.
Now this is a golf resort ......
Just
2 km south of Sawtell is the turn off to Bonville International Golf Resort.
This truly is a fantastic golf course. Voted the most beautiful golf
course in Australia 4 years in a row. It reminds us of the well manicured
American courses. It is nestled at the foot of the Great Dividing Range
and only 11km from Coffs Harbour. The resort has on site accommodation and
a restaurant and is only a short drive to the seaside village of Sawtell. We
promised ourselves that on our return journey we will definitely play the course
and maybe even spend a night or two at the resort. We bypassed Coffs Harbour
(too big) and onto Woolgoolga up the road where we had a coffee
with John (Liz’s cousin). It was good to see him and catch up on some news
before we checked out the lookout for whales. The whales are making their way up
to the warmer waters for calving before returning south.
No bridge .....
A quick visit to Grafton for lunch and then it was onto
Yamba. We caught the ferry across the Clarence River. This ferry takes about 8
cars at a time and runs 24 hours a day. It’s free and cheaper than the
government building a bridge across the river. It was touch and go as to
whether the car and caravan would make it down the steep slope to get onto the
ferry. So we closed our ears but crossed our fingers and hoped
the caravan jacks would not drag as we went down the ramp, but they did. The
exit on the other side was no problem, as the ferry driver made a special effort
to run the ferry as far up the ramp as possible..
Rob’s ex secretary from Bendix, Margery and her husband Adrian live in Yamba, so it was a good opportunity to catch up with them. They have just moved into a retirement village close to where we were staying at the Blue Dolphin Resort. We have been traveling for nearly three weeks and the weather is slowly warming up. At last we were able to change into shorts and tee shirts during the day. The temperature reached 18 degrees but the nights are still very cool. We are so glad we brought the heater with us.
A great coastal walk ....
The whales are here in Yamba and on our 10 km walk from
Angourie, the northern tip of Yuraygir National Park we saw the dolphins. This
walk is described as one of the most spectacular coastal walks in the state. The views up
and down the coast are stunning and it was while we were walking we saw the
dolphins swimming slowly along almost following us on our walk. There were two surfers catching the waves
at Shelley Beach, when
all of a sudden a dolphin surfed the same wave jumping out of the water
alongside the surfers then
eventually turning back on the wave. On our return walk we missed the turn off
to our car park and ended up walking an extra 2 km back to the car. Our last night
at Yamba was with Margery and Adrian at a Chinese Restaurant in Yamba.
Great food and we would thoroughly recommend Tom's Chinese Restaurant if you are
in Yamba.
Heading north again, this time to Hastings Point ....
From Yamba we once again headed north ending up at Hasting
Point in a very nice 5 star tourist resort called North Star Holiday Resort.
It was here we met up with our friends Noel & Heather from Ballarat who are on a
6 week trip up to the Sunshine Coast to meet with friends. We spent two
great days with them hearing all their news and also had the opportunity to meet
up with a really nice family from Denmark (Clouse, Tina, Andreas and Matthias)
who are travelling from Sydney to Cairns in a motorhome. We quickly
nicknamed the boys Andy and Matt and spent a very enjoyable time talking to them
about the differences between living in Denmark and Australia. What was
interesting was they found the price of petrol in Australia inexpensive.
The other notable difference was how cheap our meat is compared to Denmark.
They eat much more pork and chicken in Denmark.
On to Hervey Bay, well nearly ....
From
Hastings Point we decided to miss both the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast and
head straight to Hervey Bay but along the way changed our minds and stopped on
the Sunshine Coast to restock. We refuelled, visited Dan Murphy's and were all
set and ready to go BUT the next morning was constant heavy rain and there was a
bad accident and truck fire on the Bruce Highway north of the Sunshine Coast so
we decided another night was in order. We are staying in the Forest Glen
Resort just off the Bruce Highway at Chevallum about 12 km from Mooloolaba.
The park is set in amongst dense rain forest and is well equipped for family
holidays with a jumping pillow, mini golf, tennis court, heated pool with water
slides and plenty of open space.
Another day in Mooloolaba was fairly easy to take, but it was raining and both of us were battling a virus which we had picked up earlier so the idea was to keep dry and take it easy. The next morning we saw the sun shining again so we headed north again after having a pancake breakfast at the park with other caravanners.