Day 20 Wednesday 31st July, Rain+Forest and Water+Falls

We’ve had reasonable weather so far during this trip but last night it started to rain and continued today. We had already decided to head inland and visit some small towns and Dorrigo National Park. We hoped to do some walks through the rainforest and see some of the waterfalls that we had read about. After a windy but picturesque drive we arrived at the village of Bellingen. Here we called into the Old Butter Factory. Part of it had been converted into a café and other areas housed a few quaint craft shops. After stopping at the café, we visited a gallery, woodcraft store, leather shop where the owner was hard at work creating leather goods and an interesting furniture and homewares shop. From here we drove into the Dorrigo National Park and stopped at a lovely picnic spot for lunch. We had the whole place to ourselves. The rain came down while we were here but luckily there was a very comfortable shelter that we could use. We then drove to the Rainforest centre and during our walks through the magnificent and lush rainforest we were greeted with both rain and forest! We decided to do a walk to the Crystal Shower Falls. The walk was extremely easy going down to the falls but quite difficult coming back due to the steepness of the walking track. Anyway we both survived and decided to visit the nearby town of Dorrigo to see a heritage listed pub…and have a drink. We enjoyed popping into this lovely old hotel and had a great conversation with a couple of local blokes before driving a short distance to another stunning waterfall, called Dangar Falls and yes there was water falling over the falls and from the sky!

Day 19 Tuesday 30th July, Bananas, Whales and Wind

Today we travelled from Port Macquarie to another lovely park just north of Coffs Harbour at Moonee Beach. After we had settled in we took a drive up a road with many twists and turns to arrive at two lookouts. The first, Korora lookout gave spectacular views in a northerly direction towards the area where we are staying. The second, the Sealy lookout had a forest sky pier that was suspended out over the forest to give even more stunning views, this time of Coffs Harbour and southerly locations. Following this we drove down to Coffs Harbour and visited the International Marina. Soon after arriving I was sure that I had seen a whale in the very rough ocean but Rob said it was the sea breaking over the rocks. Luckily later during our walk, Rob saw the spray from whale and so conceded that there really was a whale out there. From here we drove to the Big Banana and of course shared a chocolate coated, frozen banana for afternoon tea. We also visited the cheese shop and bought some nice cheeses. We finished the day off by driving further north to Emerald Beach but didn’t get out of the car as the wind was really up but the beach views were stunning. We did find some very friendly wallabies and kangaroos in the national park and watching them was quite amusing.     

Day 18 Monday 29th July, The Blind leading the Blind

After completing a few jobs around the van we decided to go into the centre of town to do the Kooloonbung Creek Walk. The Creek walk took us through a wide variety of different ecosystems and we kept our eyes open for wild-life. We noticed quite a few sugar gliders in the trees near the cemetery, yesterday but most of the fauna must have been hiding today. Rob has a funny story about a “blind” man we saw crossing the road and joining the walk just ahead of us but I’ll let him tell the story. After our walk we decided it was time for lunch and headed to the Sea Acres National Park to have lunch at the rainforest centre and café. The café was set in a beautiful rainforest….funny about that and we enjoyed a light lunch outside on the deck although we were joined by a rather large, friendly bird who had to be shooed away several times. Following lunch we drove the centre of town where I visited the Historic old Courthouse while Rob went walking. We then hopped in the car and took the ferry over to the other side of the Hastings River to view the outlet from a different perspective.

Dinner was had at the local rugby club, Port Panthers. During the day there was a noticeable bushfire on the outer town area. With the wind gone, smoke descended on the town after dark, see photo.

Parking the car on a main road this morning for our walk I noticed a man with a blind cane walking along footpath. He went to cross the main road, cars pulled up to let him cross. He worked his way up a path near us, then cut the corner and walked down a steep slope!! Seconds later he placed his cane over his shoulder and happily walked through the park. See videos.