Day 5

5th February 2013

Tuesday morning and we are awake early and ready for another day trip. Destination - Bundjalong National Park near Evans Head to see the Black Rocks.

We set off, past Wardell, through Broadwater and arrive at Evans Head. This is also a nice little sleepy seaside town... we decided to stop at Shark Bay at a lookout to get a few photos. We walked along the rock wall and took a few photos at the end. We then headed up higher for more great views, some spectacular houses! and black boys everywhere.

We then continued on to our destination which required us to go back onto the highway and take The Gap Road exit to the Black Rocks. There is good signage from the highway to find this entrance so no problems there though we were armed with the GPS just in case!

From the highway there is a small bitumen section of road before it turns to a gravel unsealed road and from here it is approx 20 kms to the campgrounds and beach where the rocks are. It was a little bit of a bumpy ride but well maintained. You drive past a few aboriginal camp signs as this has been aboriginal land for many many years. Joel decided he better let the tyre pressure down as it was quite bumpy and we were running 48 pound in them. We didn't realise but just after we did this It was only just around the corner to the black rocks anyway.

The campgrounds here are really well set out and the neatest camp sites I have seen in a while. You have to book to stay down here but if you "forget" to book you can stay in the 24 hour sites for one night without paying. There was one camper in the whole campground so very secluded and very quiet if that's what you are looking for. From the campgrounds there is many beach access tracks that you can walk to the beach so we pulled up the truck in one of the campgrounds and walked to the beach.

The rocks are quite spectacular and worth the drive; however in the photos on the website for this national park there is really cool rocks that make arches and all weird shapes you can stand under but unfortunately these must have been washed away so we didn't get the same photo opportunities as some who have been there before us but still got some good shots.

We then jumped back in the truck and headed back to the highway and headed back to camp. We stopped at three different servos on the way back to camp and not one of them had air to pump the tyres back up! (note to self remember to pump tyres up next time we are near a servo that actually has air : S! what is the bet we forget this!) It rained a little on the way home but seemed to stop once we were back at camp. Got home to camper, opened door a big puddle of water that went from one end of the camper to the other and was dripping down from the kitchen bench....WTF? Rooky mistake... We left the roof hatch door open and rain came in there, splattered onto bench and rolled nicely onto the floor! That's on the checklist now to make sure we don't do this again!

We had some lunch (Joel cooked a pie in the Weber, is there anything this thing can't do?) and the wind seemed to die down so we thought we would put the boat in and go for a fish.

There is a boat ramp about 50m down the road from camp so we put the boat in there and headed out. (You do need a fishing permit to fish in nsw which can be purchased from the shop at camp and will set you back $12 for a month permit, so we were all set). The boat is heaps easier to get on and off the ute now after Joel modified it by taking handles off and making a custom roof rack for it to sit on. I was pleasantly surprised! There is a rock wall that runs along the river where we were trying to get out so Joel was using his "Depth Finder" (see pics below) to make sure we were not going to run into any rocks.....: ) Unfortunately Joel's depth finder was not in use when we ran into that rock wall! Lucky we had just backed off the speed to have a look around so it was only just a love tap! Haha

I am pretty sure that after we had headed out about 100m and were in the middle of the richmond river the wind picked up and waves with white caps were lapping around the boat! We then had to try and get back into a sheltered area which was tough going against the wind and the waves were splashing against the boat and throwing water into our laps. We managed to get back into a sheltered area and looked out at the water we had just come from and the water was like an ice rink, calm as anything! Think the weather is playing games with us! haha Anyway we drifted around for a while with our lines in but nothing and we are really not even sure if 1. we were allowed to fish in this area and 2. if there was even any fish there! haha note to self, map will probably help us out in both these areas! After an hour or so of no bites we decided to call it a day and head back to camp for a Weber pizza.

Tomorrow will be our last full day in Ballina as we will be heading off early on Thursday morning to get to our next destination. At the moment we are tossing up between going straight to Coffs Harbour or staying a couple of nights in Grafton (we are waiting to hear back from someone in Grafton).

Carly & Joel

 

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