Having endured our soaking at Byron for three nights, it was time to head back down the New South Wales coast, with the ultimate goal of Sydney, where I am to start work on the 21st April (we had received word that my working visa had been approved in a record time of three weeks while we were in Broken Hill). But first, we had arranged to meet up again with the Healys. Coffs Harbour turned out to be the most convenient place for their northward journey to coincide with our southward run, and we all checked in to a holiday park at a place called Emerald Beach, about 18km north of Coffs.
Right behind the beach, this holiday park turned out to be one of the best places we stayed in the whole of Australia! We booked three nights and ended up staying six. Best of all (for the Healys especially) the staff organised activities for the numerous kids roaming around the place (it is the school holidays right now) so giving the adults a bit of space. It would be misleading to say that Emerald Beach, or even Coffs Harbour, is the most exciting of places, but frankly that didn't matter. Everyone was relaxed and happy, with warm weather, a surf beach, and a bottle-o within walking distance.
Robin
The bottle-o or bottle shop is one of the curious things in Australia. Supermarkets don't sell booze but the bottle-o does, like the 'offie' at home. Bottle shops are often attached to the local hotel,which is not usually a hotel as we would know it, but a pub. A pub with less atmosphere that is. Within the hotel there is an area for gambling with many flashing gambler machines or pokies and some form of racing on the big screen t.v. (greyhound, pony and trap, horse racing). Or a rugby match, or a beach volleyball match, or any other sport you can think of. Often the bottle-o is one that you can drive through, meaning you can pull up to the forecourt so that you can easily load up your car with a block or a slab of stubbies (bottles or cans of lager). I find the notion of a drive-thru off licence bizarre when you consider that Australia has quite a problem with drink driving, especially in the rural areas. However, driving through to the bottle-o did mean we didn't strain our drinking arms by carrying the slab of lagers and the 5 litre box of chardonnay back to the car. Thank goodness!
Hannah
Another highlight of our time at Emerald Beach was the abundant, and often bizarre, native wildlife. Eastern grey kangaroos live in the nearby Moonee Beach Nature Reserve, yet we were surprised to see quite so many on our wanderings, and especially so when we saw one grazing close to our van site. Better still, while we watched this 'roo grazing away, another one hopped up alongside the van, turned, and then hopped past the front bumper and off into the bush. The grazing roo then made a noise that made it sound like it was a bit miffed, then hopped off in pursuit. And then a possum popped up in the tree!
Other wildlife included a snake that the Healys found roaming their veranda (someone said 'oh, it's OK, it was only a carpet python' - not venomous but hardly a relieving thought!) and an echidna (like a marsupial hedgehog) on the path to the beach. And a couple of times we spotted an enormous goanna scuttling in the bush and climbing a tree. This enormous lizard was about 2m long and looked big enough to eat us. We paid it due respect.
Today is our last day at Emerald Beach, and we have booked introductory surfing lessons for this afternoon. Today is thus christened 'Big Wednesday'. Watch this space!
Robin
No comments:
Post a Comment