Nambucca Heads

Tuesday, 17th September

We had a mild panic attack after dark on Sunday evening.  After listening to the funny whistling type noises coming from outside the caravan, Les suddenly realised the tree, under which the car was parked, was full of very large bats!  Big rush to move the car.

Monday started out wet and miserable and just became wetter as the day went on.  We spent the day at Broadbeach with Rae and Malcolm, having lunch at Pacific Fair before spending some time with them in their holiday unit, catching up on the news.  The rain continued all evening until about 11.00 pm, when it just bucketed down; we had virtually an inch (in the old money) of rain in half an hour.

Today we awoke to sunshine (and overhead jets!), but with stormy clouds threatening on the horizon.  We were on the road fairly early, as we had over 350 kms to travel today – Nambucca Heads being our destination.  As we drove past the turn-offs to Iluka and Yamba, we realised that we were only half an hour from Jenny and Brian, who are staying at Brooms Head.  A quick phone call to confirm they were still there, a left turn at MacLean (with all its tartan painted power poles) and we arrived at the small seaside village of Brooms Head shortly before lunch.  We had a walk around the park, looked at the beaches to the north and south (pretty spectacular, actually) and returned to our caravans for a chatty lunch.  Fortunately, there weren’t many caravans in the park, so we just drove in and parked on an empty site!  It was wonderful to catch up with them again, especially as we hadn’t really expected to see them until next year, and well worth the time taken.

Returning to the Pacific Highway, we finally encountered the threatening rain, but only a short shower.  Poor Doris had a dreadful time navigating through MacLean – Whereis really need to get their maps up to date!  It is very difficult to turn into roads that don’t exist, except on paper.  Shortly after leaving MacLean, the heavens really opened up; talk about a monsoonal downpour.  Unfortunately, there was no where for us to pull off the road (caravans just can’t stop anywhere) and we had to drive very slowly and carefully.  At least the car and caravan had a bit of a wash.

There were quite a few road works happening on the highway (which will be fantastic when all the new bits are joined up!) and we were lucky enough not to get held up.  It would have been nice to stop at the Big Banana for a photo opportunity (Cat hasn’t never seen it before), but there was just no where to stop with the caravan.  A quick photo as we drove past had to do.

Nambucca Heads navigation also proved a challenge for Doris, but we did eventually find our way up and down the steep hills to the Big4 Nambucca Beach Holiday Park.  This is a very nice park, with a very nice owner, right on the beach but very sheltered from the winds.  We had a quick look at the beach, realised that all one could really do on this beach was have a walk, then undertook a quick tour of the town (it was getting quite late in the day by this).  We stopped at the Rotary Lookout (doesn’t every town have one?) and the Captain Cook Lookout (he obviously went past here, too) and were lucky enough to see a couple of whales in the distance.  We also fed the local midgies!