Days 29 - 39

NIGHT 29 – LAKESIDE VAN PARK, WOOLGOOLGA

 

As you may recall, we’d slept at Lakeside Van Park for three nights already.

 

We awoke after the third night.  We had to pack up to leave – fold the chairs, disassemble the table, retract the awning, etc.  It was raining.  It was cold.  Under the doona was warm.  The rain increased in tempo, rushing from the sky to clatter along our roof in big, heavy drops.  The wind whipped up.  Under the doona was warm.  Our noses touched as we began discussing, reaching consensus easily.  There was nowhere we had to be.  Under the doona was warm.  The office was outside.  We snuggled in. We were staying put.  We’d inform them soon…later…eventually. 

 

NIGHTS  30 & 31 – CLARENCE HEAD VAN PARK, ILUKA.

I’d long wanted to go to Iluka.  I’d heard stories about a wild, some say feral, edge.  I’d been to Yamba, but Iluka always loomed as the yang to Yamba’s yin; the self-effacing compared to Yamba’s proclamation as ‘the best town in Australia’. 

 

I imagine them as twins, separated as much by personality as they are by the Clarence River.  Yamba, the good twin, parades along the southern bank, her clean fresh buildings shimmering in alignment like perfect teeth, the smooth grey asphalt of her roads glistening like perfect skin.  She is popular because she is welcoming and friendly. She radiates, always dressing to highlight her features in the best possible way.  Iluka, on the other hand, sprawls drunkenly along the northern bank.  Her beauty is natural but wild and raw.  Her smile is entrancing, but offered reluctantly.  She refuses convention - her hair is untidy, matting her head and her pubis.  Her teeth are slightly crooked; her skin weathered.  She doesn’t much care what people think.

 

Sorry, got a bit lost in metaphor.  Basically, Iluka is crusty and run down and beautiful.  It is surrounded by National Park.  It’s beaches are fringed with pandanas and paperbark with not a wall or rooftop to be seen. There are as many dirt roads as there are tar sealed.  It sells local school prawns very cheaply.  Plus it has the breakwall, which I will get to soon.

 

We stayed in Iluka with Ness and K (Vanessa & Kieran), and son Henry.  They rented a cabin next to our van site.  The cabin was new, clean, well laid out and reasonably priced.  The caravan park itself was tired and run down though.  It was up for sale – a large sign advertising the sale  was the most prominent feature of the park – which surely indicates that the current owners would really rather be somewhere else.  It certainly wasn’t a horrible experience staying there, but there was a lack of joy about the place.  Things, it seemed, got done because they needed to be done, nothing more, nothing less.

 

 

We had a good time though, with alcohol fuelling the nights and the all- encompassing enthusiasm of a 4 year old boy driving the days.  We took a ride over to Yamba on the ferry, Morrissey the placid included, and, while it rained in Yamba as it always does when I’m there, the day eventually fined up. So we lunched on gourmet pub grub at The Pacific Hotel, overlooking the ocean which eventually tempted us down to it’s edge.  We shopped too of course, lured by the possibilities inherent in a dozen surf/dress/boutiques beckoning with 50% off sales.  When a young salesgirl said to me “33 inch waist, am I right” my resolve crumbled.  She was wrong, but in my favour, bless her.  I love the new boardies she sold me.  She said they looked great on me.

 

 Back at Iluka we spent time on the beach and in the National Park and had the evening meal at the rickety old pub beside the river. This pub was like an architectural trifle with extensions added in brick and in fibro and in concrete block, all joined roughly together and following slightly different angles.  If ever Tim Burton designs a pub he need only look here for inspiration.  In the men’s toilet the handbasin waste was plumbed directly into the urinal trough, allowing the water to serve two purposes.  I was impressed by that.  The plumbing was rough and unrefined but it worked beautifully and no doubt conserved as much water as any elegant shower head or expensive low pressure tap setup. 

 

Now, about the Iluka breakwall.  The Iluka breakwall is one of the most fun waves I have ever surfed.  There wasn’t a large swell while I was there and the wave was far from perfect but, when a refracting wave bounces off the breakwall and combines with a ‘normal’ wave and a wedge jacks up in front of you, then make the drop and hold on.  The wave is short and sharp and full of intensity.  Going over the falls is very easily done, but so is pulling into a nice beach barrel.  It was the best surf of the trip so far.  I could easily have stayed longer; to have experienced it in bigger swells and with different winds, but we had to move on.  We are nomadic types.  Staying still is like death to us.

 

I’ve told Shana that I could live at Iluka one day.  I’m not sure that she believes me but, really, I could.  I could surf, fish, wash occasionally, work a little and cross the river to Yamba when I felt like dressing up and being pretty.   I give The Clarence Head Van Park 1 ½  stars out of five.  I could live in Iluka but I doubt I could have stayed in the park much longer than the two days.

 

NIGHT 32 – NEW ITALY REST AREA, PACIFIC HIGHWAY NEAR WOODBURN.

Truly, you would only do this to save money.  The New Italy Rest area runs parallel to the Pacific Highway – just.  It is only about 10 meters of open grassland and scrawny trees away from being another lane of the highway.  It is not much of a buffer so, whenever a big B-double truck thunders past, the van rocks wildly as the displaced air thumps into it.  And the constant stream of traffic noise never ceases, because the traffic never ceases.

 

 

We got there about 4pm and thought we might check out the museum that adjoins the rest area.  We got to the front gate and read the sign out the front. Above the bit where it says ‘No dogs allowed’, we discovered that the museum was built to commemorate how the area was chosen as a place to settle by 6 or so families who arrived in the early 1900s. It was the creation of an Italian community; an attempt to keep the Italian culture alive in a flat, scrubby and non-descript area of northern NSW.  And so they constructed several buildings of vaguely Italian design to house things that no dog is permitted to see.  Shana went in, I stayed with Morrissey.  She came back underwhelmed, but with an ice cream for each of us from the kiosk.

 

We settled into the ‘bago, fired up the DVD player and spent a night continually reaffirming to ourselves that we weren’t camped on an airport runway.  I give the New Italy Rest Area 1 star out of five because I like ice creams and felt comforted that there were many varieties available nearby.

 

NIGHT 33 – THE SERPENTINE PARK, BALLINA

Today was a day of drama and disappointment.  We hadn’t intended going anywhere near Ballina today.  Our original intention was to hole down somewhere around Evan’s Head.

 

I had insisted we go to Evan’s Head because it has a breakwall that, according to ‘Surfing NSW – The essential guide for the travelling surfer’, “can be a quality surf spot”.  After Iluka I’d decided to become a breakwall dilettante.  Evan’s Head was to be my next conquest.  But first Shan required coffee.

 

As most of you know, Shana is fond of coffee.  Being a techno-savvie gal, she uses the net to guide her to a quality soy-cap no matter what town we are in.  There is little romance in letting fate decide when it comes to coffee.  Hot roasted nirvana follows diligent research and many like-minded souls writing reviews.  Her research led her to three possibilities in Evan’s Head – two of which had gone bust and the third didn’t open on Tuesdays.  It was, of course, Tuesday.  This did not endear us to Evan’s Head.  Shana eventually got a paper-cup and plastic lid coffee from a bakery just before it started to rain heavily.  The day hadn’t started well.

 

I think length makes a difference.  The Evan’s Heads breakwall was a pale imitation of Iluka.  It refracted waves, sure, but they joined together which much less power.  Evan’s Head  breakwall is a lot shorter than Iluka though, and so less waves are refracted, which must surely mean less possibilities coming through.  I went surfing, paddling around with a lot of schoolkids on holidays from Queensland, occasionally scoring a small wedge to myself. It was all very uninspiring. Maybe it was just a bad day - or maybe Evan’s Head just sucks.

 

Anyway, for us it was three strikes and you’re out for Evan’s Head – 1. an inferior breakwall, 2. sub-par coffee and a propensity to kill cafes & 3. rain (admittedly it would be raining everywhere close by but strikes always need to cluster in threes to become valid).  We were out of here, and good riddance.  Little did we know the day’s odyssey had just begun.

 

Now, if you read the same surfing tomes as I, then you’ll know that Ballina also has a breakwall, with the south side offering a ‘wedging left hander’ that is very consistent.  Ballina isn’t far from Evan’s Head.  We had a new destination – South Ballina.  Chugga chugga.

 

Like Iluka and Yamba, Ballina and South Ballina have little in common besides the river running between them.  South Ballina is predominantly national park and undeveloped land.  It’s roads are narrow, often dirt, and regularly house potholes as big as swimming pools.  There are low, Winnebago decapitating tree branches overhanging the edges.  But, with steely resolve and rattling cupboards, we slowly wended our way away from the Pacific Highway and onto the sand and gravel carpark at the end of the southern breakwall.

 

It was afternoon and the wind had swung onshore, blowing any waves into a turgid mess.  No one was out.  There was nothing on offer.  There would be no surfing this afternoon. 

 

We’d passed a caravan park not too far back.  We decided to stay there overnight.  We would clunk our way back to check the wall in the morning.  I’d then tick another surf spot off my list and continue happily on my way.  As always Shana had quickly researched this caravan park.  It had proclaimed itself as ‘the most dog-friendly caravan park in the Ballina area’.  Turned out that it wasn’t.

 

Dogs are welcome at the South Ballina Caravan Park but, given that the whole surrounding area is national park, any dog must remain on a lead for the duration of the stay.  There was no lead free area.  The river was across the road, but dogs weren’t allowed there at all.  There was a beach behind the park, a long windswept beach that stretched for kilometres, but it was also heavily designated as a lead area only.  And if, like us, you thought that you’d casually disregard the rules and let the dog frolic on the sand – after all, what harm could it do – then there were several warnings about fines and the presence of rangers, etc. In effect then, this ‘friendliest dog park in Ballina’ was more like a prison state for dogs.  One got the impression that it was the owners themselves who hid spying from the bushes to leap out and do the fining.

 

But South Ballina breakwall was nearby and surely Moz could endure this for a single night.  Turned out he didn’t have to though.  The rudeness of the manageress and the unrealistic price they were asking had us fuming and negotiating a truculent three point turn.  I wont go into detail beyond saying that there’s a caravan park near South Ballina breakwall that needs as many colourful and inviting flags out the front as it can hang because it offers very little cheer within its perimeter.

 

So South Ballina was out.  For the good of the team I stoically crossed South Ballina breakwall from my list and we headed off into early twilight.  We still needed somewhere to park the ‘bago for the night.

 

Enroute to Ballina we chanced upon a dog beach.  It was down a skinny tar road that opened out onto a small but flat carpark, a long way from anything except the small cluster of houses surrounding it.  While Morrissey chased birds, ate sea offal and threw himself into the ocean, Shana and I decided to spend the night in this carpark.  Except we didn’t do it, because we have been so conditioned to follow rules that, in a flat patch of dirt 15kms out of Ballina, we were scared off by the presence of two red words on a white sign – ‘camping prohibited’.

 

In retrospect, what would happen?  Did we really expect that someone living in one of the nearby houses would take umbrage at us sitting quietly in our completely self-contained Winnebago, then decide to ring the council?  And then, having heard of this serious misdemeanour, would the council then dispatch a highly trained representative to travel all the way out to the carpark so as to warn us and move us along?  Seems ridiculous to write it now but those are exactly the notions that went through our heads.  The sign said no camping – even in a vehicle – and so we naturally acquiesced, driving sedately away from this perfect little spot, having no clue of where we were headed.  

 

Twenty minutes later we arrived at Ballina.  We drove around, looking for a sneaky spot to park for the night.  This was a bit dim.  If Ballina council erects ‘no camping’ signs at backwater dogbeaches on the edge of their shire, then did we expect that they would disregard the town itself?  They hadn’t, and might I say here that Ballina council could well be the most thorough sign-erecting council in Australia.  Every single space that looked like it could be used for sneaky camping had exactly the same sign erected upon it – the same one we had seen at the dog beach.  At first we found this daunting.  We had driven around for a good half an hour and found spots on the river and spots by the beach and had even seen a flat, grassy verge beside the cemetery, all sporting the same ‘no camping’ sign.   But, like a person who argues too much, we realised there was little substance beneath it.  We figured that it was all about the sign and that, having erected so many signs, policing all these areas would be almost impossible.  The sign had driven us away from one area but, as darkness enveloped us, we would be beholden to the sign no longer.  We found a nice little flat park along the river and out of the way – Serpentine Park.  It had a sign but we stopped there anyway.  And there we slept, witnessed only by the occasional jogger in the morning.  I give The Serpentine Park 3 stars out of five.  It was a lovely spot by the river that you would happily pay to stay at (if you were allowed).

 

 

NIGHTS  34 & 35 – BALLINA WATERFRONT VILLAGE

We had arranged to visit Shana’s uncle and aunt over the upcoming weekend, which was two nights away.  They live at Stoker’s Siding, near Murwillumbah, not far from Ballina.  We were having difficulties finding places to stay though.  Queensland’s school holidays were still going and many Queenslanders holiday in Northern NSW, making everywhere super expensive and decidedly anti- Morrissey.

 

Even though we had proven that Ballina is all about the sign, we didn’t want to free camp, crouching in a carpark somewhere with no shower and no facilities.  We wanted to arrive clean and refreshed.  The only place that would accept Morrissey was Ballina Waterfront Village, a small mobile home village on the northern bank of Itinerant Creek, on the way into Ballina.  It was virtually opposite what remains of the Big Prawn (which still sits sullenly beside the highway even though the service station that was beneath it, and theoretically held it up, has been reduced to rubble).

 

There was so many things that were just plain wrong about the Ballina Waterfront Village.  As Shana commented on facebook at the time, it reminded us of the song Hotel California, ‘you can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave’.  It was obvious that most of the residents had been there for a long time.  Most had transformed their mobile homes so that they now completely utilised the space they rented, erecting carports and garden sheds and decks and paved areas, often all on the same site. Everywhere you looked garden gnomes peered back at you.  And, being deep in rugby league heartland, most sites displayed a faded flag depicting their favourite team.

 

Into this settlement eased  Morrissey, Shana and I, squeezing the ‘bago into one of the four spaces available for the transient camper - a prime spot next to the pool, alongside the amenities block, in front of the clotheslines.  Immediately an elderly female resident appeared.   She was full of obvious directions like where and how to attach our power and water.  While possibly being helpful and friendly, she was clearly positioning herself and representing the park’s hierarchical structure.  I’d say she  interpreted herself near the top, probably positioned just beneath ‘owner’, as was further evidenced by the fact that she spent most of her time in the office, cluttering the small space with her barely tolerated ‘assistance’.  She walked passed our site often, smiling benignly as her eagle-eyes captured and updated information to be processed, categorised and later adjudicated on.  We waved and smiled back.  What did we care?  This was where she lived.  We’d soon be gone.

 

A pleasant surprise was that the gardens surrounding the toilets reminded me of my grandpa’s ‘fernery’.  Grandpa’s fernery, and the area surrounding the toilets, was grown beneath shadecloth and corrugated fibreglass sheeting, irrigated heavily so it remained wet.  These conditions fostered all manner of ferns and stag horns and the like.  It was nice that, when going to the shower or toilet,  smells and sights and the shock of damp air would rekindle happy childhood memories.  Someone had to tend to these plants and, whoever it was, was doing a fantastic job.  I never asked, but I like to think that it was the eagle-eyed old lady.  I’d like to think there was an aspect of the park she had ownership of.

 

Initially we were only going to spend a single night at the park.  We had arranged to then spend a night behind the Mullumbimby Rugby Club, in grounds that, similar to Bellingen Showground, the club hires out.  We were advised not to go there though.  The recent (and continuing) rains had rendered the area very boggy.  We didn’t think the risk of becoming bogged was worth the small saving in site fees and so we stayed another night at the Ballina Waterfront Village, spending the next day walking to and hanging out at the local shops, as you do.  Shana & I give Ballina Waterfront Village 2 out of five plus 1 for curiosity.  We did manage to leave, but we remained unsure until the last.

 

NIGHTS 36 & 37 – RICK & KERRY’S PLACE, STOKERS SIDING.

Rick and Kerry live in the Tweed Valley, not far from where I once lived.  Driving down into the valley conjured feelings of a homecoming for me.  It is very lush and dotted with tree ferns and little gullies filled with pockets of rainforest.  It’s very beautiful.  The Tweed Valley is actually the remains of Australia’s last active volcano.  The rim comprises the hills above Nimbin and the Nightcap and Border Ranges.  Mount Warning is the plug of the volcano, positioned roughly in the middle.  I remember when I used to work in Lismore and I rode a motorbike to and from work each day.  In the afternoons, as I rode out through Nimbin and up over the ridge at Blue Knob, the temperature dropped and the air moistened.  I had just entered the Tweed Valley.  After a hard day scaffolding in the sun and the dust I loved this part of my day.  Sometimes I’d take both hands from the handlebars and thrust my arms out like an airplane.

 

 

We had a good time with Rick and Kerry, catching up, reminiscing.  We had intended to park in their driveway but it proved to be too steep.  The rack holding the Vespa hit and scraped across the driveway well before the rear wheels got near it.  As luck would have it, across the road was a driveway to a seldomly used hay shed.  It wasn’t level but it was near enough for a day or two.  We pulled in and hoped that the owner didn’t require access while we were there, especially while we were out, having gone to Pottsville Beach or The Pottery Shed.  He didn’t, or at least we don’t think he did.  We never heard from him or received a note.

 

NIGHT 38 – STOTT’S ISLAND REST AREA.

After a day in Murwillumbah, with me reminiscing again, telling Shansie the same stories I told her last time we were here, we followed the Tweed River through the canefields.  After about 20 kilometres we reached our destination.

I was excited when we first pulled up.  This is a sanctioned Rest Area and so we are allowed to sleep here.  That means we don’t have to worry about being moved along, which is a comfort to a couple of acquiescing nomads.  Plus we got here in the early afternoon so we could have the choice of spots.  We’d establish our own hierarchy, with us at the top.

 

Mainly I was excited because the Stott’s Island Rest Area runs alongside the Tweed River and the Free Camps Australia book depicted a little fish icon which meant I could fish there.  What a fantastic place - a free camp right beside a river, and with time to enjoy it a little. I’d even bought some bait. Cool.

 

The reality was different though.  It didn’t take long before the three of us had holed up in the van, seeking refuge from the continuous black clouds of mozzies that swept across the area. The place  wasn’t much more than a swamp really.  It was beside the river but in an area that had little flow. After scouting a nice parking spot beneath the trees right next to the river, we had to reassess.  That spot was mozzie ground zero.  Instead we moved to the most boring spot in the place, in the main area of the carpark, near the high set long-drop toilets, but at least in the sun.  We hoped the sun would be a deterrent.  Forget the fishing.

 

So we sat there and sweltered, preferring to sweat rather than swipe.  The thought of clogging our pores with industrial strength mozzie repellent just didn’t appeal.

 

We are becoming jaded with the rest areas on the sides of the highway.  They do offer a safe and legal place to park, which, to be fair, is all they are ever advertised as, but expectation of something better always lurks.  It will be interesting to see whether this changes as we head up through the top end.  Our original plan has us parking in rest stops a lot.

 

 

NIGHT 39 – CABARITA BEACH CAR PARK.

Our journey so far has involved forward momentum only.  We may stay in one place for a while, temporarily putting momentum on hold, but when we leave we have always done so heading further north.  Today we backtracked a little.

 

We awoke only 15 or so kilometres from the Queensland border.  Given that we intend by-passing Byron Bay and The Gold Coast during the upcoming NSW school holidays, we had to decide whether or not we wanted to do Brisbane yet.  I wanted another surf if possible, so we backtracked to the Tweed Coast, heading for Cabarita Beach.

 

It was a beautiful sunny morning when we pulled into the Cabarita Beach carpark. The carpark wasn’t full, but it wasn’t far from it.  We lucked a spot near the entrance to the back beach and, like a yappy little fox terrier, I was out of the van to see what the surf was doing.  It was the best I have ever seen it. I’ve surfed Caba before as a fun beach break but today it was working as a point break, the swell rearing up behind the rocks on the point and breaking through past Soft Rock. From where I stood I could see the wave steepen and break along the rocky curve of the Cabarita cove shoreline. It was mid-tide and offshore.

 

And so the race began.  I say ‘race’ here because something happens to most surfers after they have checked the surf and deemed it ‘going off’.  A strong sense of urgency ensues.  Time becomes  compressed and easily wasted.  I ran/hobbled back to the van, murmuring that I was going surfing to Shana as I passed her.  I had trouble finding my boardies, the zipper on my board bag was working too slowly, sunscreen was taking an age to sink into my skin.  All the while more cars were pulling into the carpark, which meant more people in the line-up.  The sense of urgency heightened as I debated whether I needed more wax or not.  Applying it could take upwards of thirty seconds. Two people exited from the beach track.  Good.  Two people less.  Where was my rashie?

 

I found the rip and rode it out, past those closest to the shore, mainly young kids riding the reforms.  I paddled past older guys on mals, sitting and chatting at what I’ll call, using a cricket metaphor, third slip.  Second slip was populated by young guys on short boards, holiday makers rather than hardcore.  They weren’t getting much.  Most waves already had someone screaming through on the inside by the time it reached where they sat.  I positioned myself at first slip, alongside others on boogers and some competent surfers who mustn’t have been local.  A surf school from Coolangatta had brought down several Asian surfers who peppered first and second slip, grins fixed to their faces. I couldn’t understand what their mouths were saying but their actions spoke loudly of buzz and stoke.  At wicket-keeper, directly in line for the best waves, sat the local crew.  They deserved to be there.  For all I know there mightn’t have been a day like this one for months. They didn’t look too aggressive but you never know.  Thankfully it wasn’t the weekend as there was only a cluster of five.

 

The first wave I caught was tailor made for a booger.  It reared too steep past the rocks and was rejected by the local crew. It was a no paddle take-off and a hard tight mid face turn.  I hung off the side as the wave hollowed out and I scooped up behind the curtain.  I kept my eyes open as the barrel loomed before me, hanging off the inside of my board to prevent me being sucked over the falls.  The curtain closed on me but I forced my way through and was treated to a wall that kept rebuilding.  I finally pulled off before I got crunched beside Soft Rock.  Stoked! (I rarely say ‘stoked’ but, in the space of two paragraphs, I’ve written it twice; once with an exclamation mark).

 

I caught 10 waves but only one like that.  I never paddled over to wicket keeper and so had to content myself with the fuller waves that broke softer and later.  It was a great though, until I got a cramp in my right calf.  I’d had enough by then, and must admit to becoming a little frustrated with continually being called off waves that were setting up nicely.

 

 

 

We spent the day in Cabarita, lunching in the village, reading books as we stretched out in the sun, swimming with Morrissey at the back beach.  People came and went around us until, as darkness descended, there was nobody there.  This surprised us.

 

We’d become braver since Ballina, or at least our ability to logic had increased.  Cabarita Beach is part of the Tweed Shire, which is based in Tweed Heads as far as we knew.  It was unlikely anyone would travel from Tweed Heads to hassle us, especially as we had reversed into a spot invisible from the road.  And, unlike Ballina, there was not a single sign anywhere prohibiting camping. So how come nobody else was here?

 

My mind has the ability to wander to strange places.  Had something happened here that everybody but us knew about?  Was the reason there was no Wicked vans or Britz campers parked alongside us because people had been warned against staying here?  I mean, really, the place is perfect for a sneaky camp – the beach, the flat carpark, the toilets.  Had grizzly murders occurred here recently; toned young Eurohunks or balding fat nomads dragged into the bushes to be hacked into compost?  I said nothing to Shana.  I didn’t want to alarm her.  Before we settled into our warm, cozy bed, I made sure all doors were locked, especially those of the cabin which I have forgotten before.  I positioned the ignition key close at hand.  A look out the window confirmed that we were still alone in the carpark.  Or were we?

 

 Yeah, we were, but we weren’t in the morning.  We awoke to a carpark that was filling rapidly.  The surf was still pumping and the early morning crew were onto it.  Time compressed again as urgency returned.  No time for breakfast, no time to walk the dog.  I was up and out there and even paddled over to ‘wicket keeper’ a couple of times.   I got some good waves before we left. I give Cabarita Car Park no stars.  People shouldn’t camp there.  Stay away.  Don’t say you haven’t been warned…and, as he stumbled away, he turned his head to see the escaped psychiatric patient bouncing a severed head on the roof of the car, etc.  (To keep the carpark unclogged help maintain the myth, or start one).