Campervan 5

17th April: Port Macquarie

The video of the Koalas being fed had come up with "file error" so this morning we got up at 7 and jogged to the Koala Hospital in order to see 8 o clock feeding time, we got a few videos and the Koalas seemed a bit more active than yesterday. We were knackered by the time we got back to the van and so we had a big drink and had our breakfast. The rest of the day was spent on the beach and in the sea. Its quite strange here because its really hot and sunny but it goes dark about 5 o clock at night so the day feels quite short. Its probably hotter at 8 in the morning than it is at 4 in the afternoon. we made pancakes after tea and Charlotte produced some lovely ones. I on the other hand made a bodge of making one and it turned out in millions of pieces of gunk, oh well.

18th April: Port Macquarie - Kempsey - South West Rocks

Lots to write about today. Got up on the beach at Port Macquarie and it was cloudy so we thought we would drive on. One of the tasks of the day was charging up the phone so we tried to do that at the information office but thay wouldnt let us. We went to an internet cafe to do it there, its charged now though so i can get the stoke score from my dad in the morning. There wasn't too much to do in Kemsey because it wasn't by the coast so we drove on to South West Rocks. There was an ace beach with massive waves so after chatting to the local man in the tourist information office we decided to go into the sea, you could get into the sea from some rocks by the car park so we decided to take that short cut, unfortunately there was a massive wave that came over the rock when we were climbing in and it washed Charl over the rocks and into the sea giving her many cuts and gashes. Luckily there were lifeguards on the beach so they were able to patch her up and we could return to the van for a cuppa instead of the rough sea. The day did get worse though, first the van sink ran out of water so we had to go to the petrol station to fill it up then when we were cooking our tea a bit later the van run out of gas! By that time the petrol station was closed so we had to go out for tea which we couldn't really afford to do! We shared a meal but had a side of chips to fill us up. At night we went to stay where the tourist info gut told us to go but there were loads of Mosquitos and Kangaroos!

19th April: South West Rocks - Coffs Harbour

We woke up without being bitten by any Mosquitos mainly because we slept fully clothed. We tidied up first thing and said goodbye to the numerous Kangaroos that had been around all night, then we drove up to the Gaol museum but it was way too expensive to go in so we didn't bother and decided to drive on. We stopped in Nambucca Heads in the afternoon to do some shopping and listened to some advice from a lady parking up next to us when we were unloading our stuff. When we got to Coffs Harbour it was nearly time for our tea and so we prepped some salad to go with the sausages we were about to cook on the barbecue, when we were cooking them they smelt amazing and they tasted even better! That night we stopped next to another campervan so we figured out it would be ok.

20th April: Coffs Harbour - Highway Rest Stop

Coffs Harbour wasn't looking to good this morning with all of the rain that was coming down but we still decided to visit their "Big Banana" Basically it was a place where they grew bananas and they showed you a film on how they make bananas and then you look around a suvenir shop that sells banana products. Just when we decided to leave though we came accross a candy shop where you could watch them make the sweets, very interesting actually to find out how they get your name into rock!. Having drove inland a bit on the Pacific Highway we stopped in a place called Grafton and did our laundry before setting off to Ballina, we stopped at a nice rest stop on the way though cus it was to dark to find somewhere else to camp.

21st April: Rest Stop - Ballina

The rest stop we stopeed at had a museum dedicated to the Italian community that arrived there 200 years ago. It took us till 11 o clock to leave the van though as it had been raining all morning and by the time we had slowly looked round (Charl was struglling with her foot) the rain had gone off and we could drive on to Ballina. The rangers are aparently clamping down on campers like us parking illegally overnight so we tried to find a campsite, they were rediculously priced though as it was the childrens easter holiday so we had to stop at rest stop on the Highway again. We decided to go to the swimming baths though on the way so we could freshen up in the hot showers.

22nd April: Ballina - Minyon Falls - Lismore - Ballina

More bad weather today, overcast and showers on and off. We thought "sod it" and went to the beach anyway but it was closed because the sea was too rough. That made us decide to go to a waterfall we had read about in the lonely planet book. It was a bit of a treck inland through Lismore and then loads of winding roads but worth it to get there because there was a barbecue area where we did sausage and egg sandwiches for dinner. You could see the waterfall from the platform but there was a path that lead you to the bottom of the waterfall and we took this route. The rain was belting it down at the bottom so we couldn't really take any photos but it was nice to look at. The road back to the campervan took ages as it was all up hill but we got ther in the end with not being badly struck leeches this time. We drove back to Lismore in the dark and had packet pasta for tea before going to the TAB (its like a bookmakers in a pub) and watching the greyhound racing. We drove back to the place we stopped at last night and had an ealry night.