Day 30

2 March 2013

This morning we woke up to blue sky and somewhat warm sunshine. No complaints here!

Market day today, Mallacoota has markets from 9 to 1 just behind the main street. Easy walk from the holiday park so we walked over to check them out. There was about 12 stalls selling a range of products from fruit and vegies to jewellery and arts and crafts. While we didn't buy anything they are worth just looking at in case there is anything you might like. We then headed down the Main Street and stopped at Lucy's cafe for breakfast. Scrambled eggs, coffee and a muffin, not bad, nothing to rave about though. Then to the bait shop to sort out a bit of new tackle for our rods in the hope that we may be able to catch something today!

New lines rigged up and we head out again. It was much calmer today than yesterday which meant we were drifting at a good speed to pick up some flatties....and we did! We got four all up, but 3 keepers. They have to be between 30-50cm to take them.

I did also manage to catch quite a few shells! Not sure what is inside of these but they clamp shut on the hook and you can't get the hook out! Annoying cuz they are heavy enough to make you think you have a fish as well!

This took us pretty much all afternoon so we headed in to fillet and eat them! They have a really well set up scaling and filleting section just up from the boat ramp. We headed there and ran into a nice man who showed us the best way to fillet flathead which was very nice of him! While you are filleting the fish there is so many seagulls flying around ya head, and pelicans just standing all around the tables waiting for something!

It is a bit unnerving having a mob of pelicans stalking you! We gave them some easy food (fish carcasses) and we were on our way. Joel had them on the frying pan in the weber before you could say "fry the flathead!" And eaten pretty much just as fast, pan fried in garlic butter fresh flathead....mmmm

Joel then washed his dirty car to try and make it look half respectable!

Carly & Joel

 

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Day 23

23 February 2013

Today we awoke to rain and wind. And lesson NOT learnt! We left the roof hatch open last night and had a van full of water again! We are really lucky I think that the water just goes on one side of the van where the bench and sink and flooring is, if the hatch was on the other side, it would be wet couches, wet iPads, wet everything!

After our clean up we headed outside the van to have a look around, at this stage it was pouring and the rain was blowing straight into the annexe area so we couldn't really even stand outside the van without getting wet! We are trying to be resourceful in our bush camping and decided to put buckets under the water flowing off the annexe roof which we can later use to have a shower.

I had read on the Internet about the Moruya Markets and thought they were worth a look even though it was miserable weather. On the Internet it states it is the fastest growing market in central NSW with 120 stalls, so I thought well it will be worth a look surely......

Markets are located on the river, first left after the bridge in the park there, can't miss them. I would say they would have been pushing 10 stalls here, in their defense it was raining, however I am not sure that the 110 stalls that didn't turn up today really exist?! Anyway some nice fruit and vegies if you need them.

We then went for a bit of a drive, not like we had anything pressing to do at the van! Our neighbours had told us about a walk so we thought we would check that out, it was called the Bingi Dreaming Track and it is located at the Bingi Point. The walk we want to do is 5.5km so couldn't do today because of the weather situation but the Bingi Point there is nice and worth a look.







There is a information sign there that says shipwrecked vessels are located in this area etc....Joel was like where? And then he thought he found one.....haha

He also found some shelter from the rain under the shipwreck!

The weather was just not good so we kept driving in the car and decided to have a look at Tinebar where a couple of campers had told us you can get a $5 lunch here at the Sports Club. It is only about 10 mins up the road from our camp and is clearly signed off the highway. Good news the $5 lunch is only on Monday to Friday...haha but we decided to go in and have a look around anyway. It is a really nice little club, wasn't packed or anything for a Saturday, had a beer and some hot chips and gravy and headed back to camp.

Unfortunately the great solar system we have does not work when there is NO sun! So in the afternoon we had to resort to the next source of power - the generator, which is a bit noisy but not much we can do about it. You are allowed to run generators from 8am-8pm here so not breaking any rules.

The rest of the arvo was spent marking on maps where we have been, looking at where we are going, watching TV, cooking pikelets, eating cream haha and settling in for a night of karate kid.

Carly & Joel

 

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Day 3

3 February 2013

 

Well our day started really early this morning, about midnight! We experienced extremely high winds here over night and the whole camper felt like it may just lift off the ground and tip over! We had to get up numerous times to readjust poles and take stuff down and the door kept coming open in the wind! It was hectic and if we weren't fixing something up, we were lying in bed wondering what the next thing would be that would collapse! So no sleep for us for most of the night, the wind did die down at around 4am so we slept from then to 8ish. High winds are expected again tonight so this could be another interesting night...

As mentioned in last post, we headed off to the Byron Bay Markets which are on the first Sunday of every month. On the way to Byron we made a detour to the Macadamia Castle to see what they had to offer... inside is a nice cafe and gift shop and obviously macadamias for sale. To get into the actual activity side of the castle it was a $17 admission fee and inside you can play mini golf, visit the animal farm etc however we didn't really think this was something we needed to waste money on (however if you have kids, this could be a good day out) so after having a look around we got back in the truck and kept going.

Byron was absolutely packed with people and it really is a unique part of Aus, there was a lot of bare footed, hairy arm pitted, carefree, tie-dyed, hugging people around which was interesting people watching but I would have to say that everyone there just looked healthy, fit, happy and slightly out of it.. so they must be doing something right!! We were hoping that the markets may have fresh fruit and vegies but out of the 100 stalls that were there, there was one fruit shop. It was mainly clothes, food and therapies etc.

After the markets we thought we would take the tourist drive back to Ballina past Lennox Head. Lennox Head is so much quieter than Byron and nicer, less touristy... we stopped at Lake Ainsworth where we sat on the edge of the lake, enjoyed a mango we had purchased at the markets and watched the sail boats ride up and down. I also experimented with the self timer on my camera (see third photo below) which I think went surprisingly well considering we are both in the shot, our heads aren't cut off and we don't have some weird look on our faces like "When is this camera going to go off?!" haha

 

By this time we were hungry and ready for lunch, and as we were not very organised this morning we hadn't bought anything to have on the road so we continued back in the direction of Ballina. A little up the road was the Lennox Head Lookout which had some spectacular views but was very windy!

Back at camp we had lunch, went for a swim, sunbaked and rested. Dinner was T Bone we bought from the butcher at Ballina Central and it was delicious. Yes I may just become one of these people that posts a photo of everything they eat... I am only doing this as I think it is quite impressive what you can make from only a Weber Baby Q!

 

After dinner we headed to the camp kitchen to see if there was anything worth watching on tv (as we haven't quite worked out our TV set up yet!) and of course there was nothing on tv! We then decided we should try and get an early night to catch up on some sleep.

We also trialled what happens if you follow our blog by becoming a "follower" at the bottom of the page. If you do choose to follow it, it is good as it sends you an email with each post I upload, rather than you having to log on to the website each time. Only downfall is that you need to have a google, twitter or yahoo account or set one up to follow. The follow by email doesn't actually seem to do anything...

Anyway totally up to you guys.

Carly & Joel

 

 

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