Hello again! This post is a little late as we left Coffs Harbour four days ago. So let me take you back to the last post when we left Trial Bay Campground on the 16th February. A rat chewed the wires in our car engine, we travelled to Coffs Harbour with no air con, no cruise control and the engine thinking it was over heated. Tim and the NRMA man work out the car was safe to drive and it only took a day for the Ford Service people in Coffs to have it fixed. The mechanic had previously worked in Sydney and saw 3 or 4 rat chewed engines a month, so he knew what to check and how to fix it. Our first day in Coffs Harbour was idyllic. The sky was blue, the weather warm, we went swimming at the beach, I got the washing done while Tim took the car to Ford.

From then on the weather went down hill rapidly. Cyclone Marcia struck the Queensland coast and the east coast was blanketed with heavy rain. Flash flooding warnings were active all down the NSW coast from the Qld border to Nambucca Heads, south of Coffs Harbour. For the next week it rained non stop. Sand bag collection points were set up through out Coffs Harbour as a king tide loomed. The caravan park we were in was highish so we felt safe. We prepared for the forecast strong winds by taking down our outside awning and storing away all outdoor chairs, tables etc. The winds came and were strong, but not as strong as expected. The surf beach looked ferocious, grey sky and grey sea with huge waves . Even the protected Harbour had surf waves in it. So our time in Coffs was spent seeing movies, reading, visiting the local pub and local surf life saving club and the Fishermens Co-op on the harbour. Thus not many pictures to show. We can highly recommed the Coffs Harbour Fishermens Co-op for beautiful fresh local fish and oysters. Any left over fish they don’t sell is smoked, and every day they have an array of different varieties of smoked fish. We had smoked sword fish, tuna, a local fish I can’t remember the name of and others, they all tasted fantastic. Not pink like packaged smoked salmon, they are brown like cooked meat. If you’re in Coffs try it out, the staff behind the counter will proudly tell you which one of them did the smoking and how good it is.

We had intended to stay only five nights but ended up staying ten, until the weather cleared. We managed to go out sight seeing on the last day. These are the places we visited. Dangar Falls on the Bielsdown River. ‘The surrounding rock walls, ledges and rocky bed of the Bielsdown River are the result of a succession of lava flows from the ancient Ebor volcano which last erupted 19.6 to 19.2 million years ago . These flow sequences are up to 400 m thick and cover an area of 480 km2.The cliff face to the left of the falls reveals a curved and irregular “organ pipe” structure caused by the shrinkage of lava as it cooled’.

Dorrigo National Park is part of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area. ‘Comprising of serveral areas in north-east NSW and south-east Queensland, they are the most extensive areas of subtropical rainforest in the world. Few places on earth contain so many plants and animals which remain relatively unchanged from their ancestors in the fossil record. The outstanding geological features displayed around shield volcanic craters and the high number of rare and threatened species are of international significance for science and conservation’.

And these are some other random places we saw on the day.

So we left Coffs Harbour on the  26th Feb and arrived at our current camp site, Lake Arragan Camp in Yuraygir National Park. It’s a wonderful location, nestled between the surf beach and the lake. I will post all about it soon. Cheers for now. Helen and Tim