We arrived in Grafton Tuesday 31st August and set up camp in the Grafton Greyhound and Racing Track in the Caravan Park attached to it. Thursday was a very wet and overcast day and probably not a good day to visit some lovely beaches, however we set off for the day. We called in first to a lovely little township of Ulmarra, with a lot of rather quaint shops bursting with collectibles and old wares. We spent a few moments wandering in and out of the shops and admiring the goods and chatting to the shopkeepers who seemed to be in awe as to the fact that we were Sandgropers in this little part of the world.
We drove into Yamba and spent some time exploring the town, as I said it wasn’t a very good day so the photos probably won’t show what a lovely fishing spot it really is.
I love the textures and colours in these rocks at Yamba
We had the usual fish and chips from the Marina, this seems to be our signature dish at the moment, but we may as well strike while the iron is hot and enjoy this lovely fresh fish that is available in these fishing towns.
The Marina at Yamba
We then continued on to another fishing town of Iluka.
On Sunday it was Father’s Day so we ventured out to the town of Wooli, again a lovely clean spot. It boasted a great riverside Caravan Park and very neat housing.
Oyster Farming is quite prominent here and they also have a shop which sells Wooli Oysters 7 days a week. Again we had another feed of fish and chips before heading off to Minnie Waters.
Most of the following week was spent with Doctor’s visits and visits to the Vampire Clinic (Pathology for blood tests is its correct title), I was allowed to drive myself to the Doctor’s Surgery, but I probably won’t be allowed to again as a bird flew into the rear vision mirror and luckily the mirror fell intact inside the car. However his lordship didn’t believe me and reckons I must have hit a pole. Not this little brown duck. Tuesday we drove over to Coff’s Harbour for our usual vigil on which way to travel and whereabouts we were going to park and luckily we have found a lovely place to camp when we move on from here. Wednesday we were joined by our friends Ali & Bruce who were on their way home to Canberra after selling their Motor Home in Noosa. We had an excellent meal at the Roche Family Hotel, which was recommended to us by the Caretaker at the park.
Grafton was established in 1859and declared a city in 1885; the area is famous for its tree lined streets which come alive each October when the purple haze of the Jacarandas come to bloom. I would have loved to have been here then as the streets are lovely even now. The 8 day Jacaranda Festival, the oldest floral festival in Australia, is held annually starting off on the last Saturday in October. The Clarence River was once the region’s main trade route and is a dominant feature of the region. The famous Grafton Bridge which joins North and South Grafton is a huge feature with narrow twists and turns, I am dreading crossing over in the bus. Although we have been assured that cars will stop and let us through, fingers crossed that will happen. It was bad enough when we had the wrong point in the GPS when we arrived in Grafton and it took us on a tour through Grafton and the CBD with several bridges with a height less than 4 metres. As you can imagine it would not be easy to reverse the bus in these circumstances. As we are higher than that we have two bridges to choose from when exiting one is 4.6 and 5metres high respectively.
Talk again soon
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