Back to NSW

After 4 months in Queensland we're back into New South Wales.

From Chinchilla we continued east to Maroochydore and the Bushtracker factory where we had our caravan serviced and spruced up.  The weather closed in and the heavens opened up.  We've been lucky with the weather and have only had a handful of wet days.  Our next few weeks were to be the exception.  We decided to spend a week at Bribie Island, a sand island just north of Brisbane in Moreton Bay.  We set up camp on a dry sunny day and spent the next few days waiting for the rain to stop!  We did manage to get out in the few dry spells and saw some of the WWII gun placements on the beach.  Cherryl took the opportunity to attend a couple of workshops at the local craft shop, Scrappers Paradise.

After 8 days it looked like the rain had passed so we ventured back into NSW and the Border Ranges Centre near Kyogle.  We've spent quite a bit of time in the beautiful Tweed Valley in the past year so travelled through Murwillumbah towards Kyogle.  We booked in for 4 days amid the lush green hills.  Then it started to rain again.  It bucketed down for the next 2 days so we just relaxed in the caravan.

On Saturday we drove the windy, water damaged road to Kyogle to pick up some locally grown fruit and vegetables at the market.  We had hoped to spend some time in the many National Parks of this area but they are all closed due to the wet weather.  This area has been in the news recently as there are many protests against coal seam gas exploration and mining.





Then it was on to Nimbin, which still has a hippie influence, before returning to our camp.  Nimbin shot to fame in 1974 when it was host to the Aquarius Festival.




At last the weather is easing up so we're back on the road again.  There have been a lot of floods in northern NSW over the past 6 weeks and the latest bout of heavy rain hasn't improved the road conditions.  The rivers are still very high and we're taking care with our route to avoid the trouble spots.  After a free-camping night south of Casino we've set up camp in Urunga for 2 weeks.  We had planned to stay in Bellingen but the camping area at the showground is a quagmire and we would run the risk of being evacuated if there's another downpour. We're staying the the Urunga Heads Holiday Park which is a very nice park close to the beach on the estuary where the Bellinger and Kalang Rivers meet the ocean.  Caravan parks are the safest option at the moment with so much water and swampy ground around.