Woolgoolga has enough o’s in it to say wow four times over. And although you really only need to say it once to get the effect, four times is not uncalled for. We left Yamba at around 9 and stopped at Grafton on the way, where we stocked up on snacks and bought a bigger camp table for outside, but forgot the mundane stuff like milk and bread. It took us 15 minutes of waiting to get back on the highway. Lucky there are building a new one, what a pain.

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We are at the lakeside van park and the lake is looking real good. It runs out to the sea which is just a few steps  from us. Lots of trees at this park and the location is great. However it is crowded and the sites aren’t really made for vans as big as ours AND a car. Luckily the sites behind us were empty when we got here so I could just drive through, but even that was tricky as we had to get people to move their cars just for us to get to our spot.

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We set up and went for a walk along the beach to the lake. Such a great spot, it reminds me of Currimundi lake. We came straight back to the van to get our togs on and float down the creek. Except Tim, who got a second hand iphone for Xmas. We bought him his own plan at Aldi in Grafton and to say he is gushing with excitement would be an understatement. There should be a new word for the frisson created by the purchase of a new piece of electronic equipment, maybe i-thusiasm or i-xcitement or even i-hilaration. No swim for him, he bathed in the glow of the iphone 6’s tender embrace- “Come, come to me my little pretty; here see the shiny things ignore the silly reality– haha” I fear we will lose him to the evil  apple scented clutches of the cyber beasts.

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Today I got up early to chuck a lure around to see if I could bother some fish (no luck) and we went to Coffs so that I could see a quack. My main problem being that before we left, I quite deliberately went to the doctors in Brighton to have a skin tag cut off from my inner thigh, (sorry for the too much info there …… there are photos but you don’t want to see them) as I knew it would be annoying when I was walking around in wet boardies. Turns out walking around with a wound on your inner thigh is much worse that walking around with just a tag. I also fell off the stand up paddle board awkwardly on Xmas day and bruised my heel. So now I have walk on just the ball of my left foot. So the painful rubbing from the thigh thing combined with the crazy hobble from the heel bruise make me look like I’ve been doing nothing but riding a horse for the last 20 years and I just can’t get this walking thing right anymore.

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We passed the big banana on the way and I got all enthused about stopping on the way back for a quick banana split (who wouldn’t?).  So we passed back that way at about 11:30 and the with the school holiday crowds it ended up to be a complicated and slightly stressful outing. Parking problems, people everywhere, a long line up of people waiting to have their turn to stand in front of said oversized fruit so their friends can take a snap, it was all a bit too much. However we did push our way onto a way too sunny table and I got my banana split (it didn’t disappoint).  This was followed by another almost 10 minute wait to re-enter the highway—TRAFFIC everywhere. Once back at Woolgoolga I found a shop that sold me an old fashioned surfmat so now we can splash in the waves or the creek. Looking forward to using it.

Danny

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I have always fancied myself as an investigative reporter and I think I have found a story that may just blow the lid on a national disgrace. I smell a tea towel scamming rat here. Look at this supposed Coffs tea towel looks generic doesn’t it. The close up on the packaging doesn’t mention any particular place, just ‘Sealife of Australia’??!! I can’t see any mullet or yabbies on there either! I am on the look out as we travel for the same tea towel with different place names. I can feel a royal commission coming on. It’s going to break like a cotton tsunami.

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