So while we are a couple of days late in starting our adventure, the rain, wind and storms that happened in the days leading up to our original departure date (30 January 2013) not only put us back in packing and preparing the camper, they also hammered the NSW coast, and we were unsure whether we would even be able to make it to our first destination.
On the morning of 30 January 2013 we rang the holiday village at Ballina where we were booked in, believing that they would tell us that either the ferry to the park or the roads would be closed. However the lady on the front desk assured us that all roads were open and the ferry was operating and the park was not flooded and was ready for visitors. Unfortunately we didn't think that this would be the case so we had stalled our packing in the days leading up to Wednesday and there was no way we were going to be ready to leave straight away! We decided to delay for 2 days to ensure we were totally packed and ready and to give the floods a little more time to recede.
Morning of the 1st Feb 2013, we both were wide eyed and bushy tailed at 4.30am! We decided that we were ready and although we couldn't technically check into Ballina until 2pm we were going to get on the road because we couldn't wait a minute longer to start this trip!
Car is packed, Cheryl has had the rundown on the house, camper is hooked up ready to go, last thing to do..... leave our little snapper! : ( A lady at work asked me how i was going to say goodbye to snapper, and i said well it will go something like this... CYA SNAP! haha. That is not actually how it went at all, i started to get quite stupidly emotional and felt like i was leaving my only child at home! We took him up to the granny flat so Cheryl could keep him entertained while we left, Cheryl suggested that she bring him down to wave goodbye; however Joel said NO MUM i don't want to see him as we drive away, (which is exactly what i was thinking but didnt want to say it!)
Anyway, I may have already told some friends and family but if you don't already know I am obsessed with the "BIG things" in Australia and would like to visit as many of them as I can. So where better to start then the BIG pineapple!
Big thing photo taken...now on the road for some serious driving. Of course leaving early has it's advantages; however it also has disadvantages like peak hour traffic by the time you hit Brisbane/Gold Coast area. Now while we were well aware of this when we left we were desperate to just get on the road and start this trip so were willing to sit in traffic where required. For future reference though we need to learn to sleep in and mosey about (like real retired people do) and wait until everyone is already at work and then head off.
While on the road I remembered that I had left my Etoll tag in my Toyota Echo which we sold to a lovely lady in Caloundra. I decided to message her and just ask if she would be able to post the toll tag back to us etc. She replied and said that was no worries... and proceeded to thank us for the little notes we left in the car. I looked and Joel and thought "What Notes??" and then i realised that my last day of work, my fellow workmates thought it would be funny to toilet paper the whole inside of my car and leave little paper notes saying goodbye, good luck and thank you! While I obviously removed all the toilet paper and thought I had removed all the notes...the buyer of my echo thought we had put the notes in there for her to say thanks for buying the car!!! Well after I picked myself up off the floor of the car from laughing so hard I decided I better break the bad news to her and tell her the notes actually weren't for her! She took it well and it was a little bit of amusement on the road!
We experienced our first rolling blockade today also, with 4 "safety" cars holding up the whole four lanes of the M1 highway so that further up the road a truck driver could remove the remnants of his tyres from the highway. That was interesting and slow but didn't take long and we were on our way.
We stopped once on our way to Ballina and it was at the Sleepy Hollows Rest Area as we both needed to use the bathroom. I would highly urge you not to stop at this rest area! There was an attractive line of portable loos which looked quite innocent from the outside but the smell from the truckers that had stopped to drop off their load earlier was dry reaching material! And I did not breathe the whole time I was in there! After I resurfaced the only question I had was "does anyone have any hand sanitizer" (note to self put this on the shopping list) YUCK!
We came to the road that leads to the ferry to take us across to our holiday park destination and look at what we see.....
While this is not the end of the world it adds another 30 mins onto the trip so we were a bit disappointed! (thanks front office desk at the holiday park for the heads up! not!)
30 mins later we arrived at Ballina Holiday Village at 11am and set up camp, beautiful day but quite hot setting up in the middle of the day. We then relaxed on the deck and ordered a beef burger (one of the best beef burgers I have had).
After lunch we checked out the camp kitchen, amenities and pool area. Being so hot we couldn't resist the look of the pool and spent a good hour swimming around. I would have to say my pool skills are not what they used to be... I couldn't swim more than a couple of laps, my eyes got sore, my ears were blocked, my dives were belly flops and let's face it I must be getting older! haha.
Camp Kitchen
Sign for Snapper
Tipi Huts - Form of Accommodation We then headed for a little drive to see what was around us. Unfortunately the water is not as pristine as it would normally be from the floods, actually the best way to describe it would be poo water! It looks awful which is a shame. There is also beach 4wd access here so we headed to the track only to find that the ramp had been washed out and a big drop from the sand dune was required to even get on the beach. We decided to hang around the camper for the rest of the afternoon and research some things to do and see in this area and where we are going to head to next!....... Any suggestions???
Go Out & Make A Difference
Carly & Joel
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