We packed up in the gentle rain that was falling but with the weather a lot warmer it was of no consequence. It did however make for a rather grey day. Following the coast road from Sawtell we soon arrived at the sprawl of Coffs Harbour where we navigated our way to the port area and in particular the Jetty. Quite an interesting spot for travelers as it is possible to stay overnight for no charge in a parking area near the jetty. With nice weather it would be quite a pleasant spot. No idea why the Shire allows “camping” so close to the CBD. Had we not needed the facilities of a caravan park we would have stayed there.
The city itself is in banana country and is home to “The Big Banana” and as expected there was a large walk through banana housed on the northern entrance. There are lots of these “big” things all round Australia, most of which we have not bothered to track down and photograph. Being back in banana growing country did however make us realize that the really cold weather was now behind us and as we traveled north through Grafton this became more apparent with fields of sugar cane stretching out from the highway in all directions.
Another interesting aspect of the area was a significant number of very large waterways cutting across the very flat land that exists from the hills to the sea. It has been a while since we have been in such flat countryside. It looks like the sort of area that would flood without too much trouble at all although no height indicators were present. On reaching Ballina (again) we branched off to the coast to our stop for the night at the best caravan park we have ever been in. Lovely park like grounds and excellent facilities and not too over the top price wise, especially considering it is the school holidays. It is close to Stennars and Lennox Head and some lovely surf beaches that extend north to Byrons Bay and south to Ballina. The Lennox Heads point break was especially awesome.
With the day done we spent the evening filing our tax returns given that the 7th was close off for them to be in. There has been quite a bit of confusion between us and IRD as to what return we should file due to us being out of the country for so long with us each receiving seemingly contradicting advice. Oh well, they are done and filed and if wrong we are sure we will hear back.
