Into the tropics

My favourite spread from 13 years ago and still yummy today

Another glorious day, unfortunately we had to spend it in the car. We moved further north today to Byron Bay. First of all though we had to repack (our luggage has expanded to fill our car - so much so that it has got out of hand). Matt took Tom for a play at the parks facilities whilst I grappled with everything. There was a jumping pillow, giant chess and a putting green - so that kept them both busy for quite a while)

At 10, the car was ready, so we all jumped inside. It wasn't a fast journey as the Highway was single track for a fair while (although there were serious roadworks going on along big chunks of it - turning it from what we would call an A road to a Motorway). We stopped off at Grafton as I spotted a Target where I knew I would be able to get a swimming costume. I popped in and yes I found one that fits - phew, it was also heavily reduced - yahoo, it is also bright pink - yuck! Oh well, beggars can't be choosers, it was purchased and I'll just have to suffer the shame of wearing bright pink!

River Clarence

English and Gaelic in Australia?

As we had stopped anyway and it was lunchtime, we thought we would have lunch too. Matt and Tom found a Japanese outlet so we headed to that: gyudon for Matt and ebi fry with rice for me as well as a side order of gyoza with Tom sharing as usual. We then headed back to the car, we decided to come off the highway for a little while and followed tourist route 22 which took us through beef country, alongside the Richmond River - very flat and lush countryside.

Tartan Totem Poles

And more

We had to get a little chain pulled free ferry back across the river to continue our journey Northwards. This ferry was green and yellow just like the Manly ferry, does that mean that all public transport ferries have the same livery?

The first town we came across on the other side of the river was Maclean, which is a Scottish town. So much so that some of the signs were written in English and Gaelic. They have also painted hundreds of telegraph with different tartans, I even spotted a weather vain in the shape of a piper, the public loos were also divided between lads and lassies. I wonder how Scottish the people are or whether this is just a gimmick to try to get people to stop off and spend money with them? It didn't quite work with us - we stopped, took a couple of photos from the lookout point and of the tartan poles and then got back in our car and carried on.

Tom was quite good in the car - he didn't shut up the whole time, we were singing silly songs, spotting things, playing cafe, playing with Totoro, asking silly questions etc etc. he certainly wasn't going to doze!

Mummy can I play a game on your ipad?

We got to Byron Bay around 3.30, checked in. I was pleasantly surprised with our cabin. I had a bit of trouble finding somewhere to stay here. Either accommodation was overpriced (double what we had been spending), full, minimum booking of 3 nights, no children or tents only (we didn't want to risk my wet weather curse with those). This place was reasonably priced - only drawback is that their wifi isn't working, meaning I've got behind on this blog again. The cabin is more spacious than the other two: it has a bunk in the living area meaning they haven't tried to cram in a second bedroom, giving us more space elsewhere. Tom once again is going to sleep in our bed and then we are transferring him to his bunk when we go to bed.

Anyway after looking around the cooking facilities we headed to the local supermarket to get provisions in: more lamb and some pork, beer etc. then back to the cabin for dinner, shower and bed.


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Location:Byron Bay