16 November 2008 - rain rain glorious rain!!

9th November

Sarah and I got up around 7am and sat outside under the tarpaulin with a cup of tea whilst I finished my book and Sarah wrote up her journal. Before we knew it, it was 8.40am, Dan was still asleep, we had yet to eat breakfast and we still had the camp to pack up.

The roo’s were still around feeding, I think they have a permanent residency here at the service station, it took us a good few hours to get ourselves sorted and it was still raining we just had to hope that it would ease off by the time we got to Coff’s Harbour.

It was midday by the time we reached the jetty at Coffs harbour, they had a small market going on so we had a look round before walking to the solitary island at the end of the walk way. The island was a nature reserve for mutton birds, which apparently fly from the Philippines to nest and rear their chicks. Just as we were walking up the very steep track to the top of the island when it started to rain heavily! After taking a few quick snaps of the fantastic view we made a hasty retreat to the bottom of the island where there was a small amount of shelter.

We got back to the van wet so we drove to a nearby park to have dinner in hope that we would find some shelter. There was no cover so we all stood under the boot and cooked a pork stir fry, which was delicious!! Whilst in the park we watch some people coming and going, it was either the local gay hang out or where the local drug users came to get their next fix, either way it look dodgy!! Needless to say we made a hasty get away as soon as dinner was finished, we had to get on anyway as we have got a lot of ground to cover over the next week.

We set off west into the mainland, we had decided to take an inland route which would hopefully reward us with some great scenery and lots of national parks to explore.

We reached the first national park in Dorrigo, we went to check but what was around but unfortunately the weather had taken a turn for the worst and we weren’t able to appreciate the view from the sky bridge. Time was getting on so we enquired after local campsites and were pleased to be directed to one just 5 minuets down the road.

The campsite was actually just a big garden to the Dangar falls lodge, so we picked a spot and sat in the van for 10mins in hope that the rain would give a little. Sure enough it stopped just long enough for us to get Sarah’s tent up and the tarpaulin so we would have a bit of shelter.

We wet to bed by 9pm and just hoped that tomorrow the weather would improve so we could at least start exploring the area a bit more without getting soaked through!