Tripping about

We've been here at Moonee Beach for 2 weeks and I've got to say this is a great caravan park (which will now be abbreviated to c/pk as I'm sick of typing it out in full) especially if you have dogs. A few more caravans and campers are starting to turn up and I suspect this will increase as we head towards the busy Christmas holiday period. We're confirmed here until 26 Dec. but may have to move to another c/pk as this one is fully booked to fill the gap until we head to Iluka on 3 Jan. Fingers crossed there is another cancellation at Iluka and we can get in there earlier than 3 Jan. We had no idea just how booked up ahead these c/pks get during the Xmas school holidays.


Anyway, more about what we've been doing since you last heard from us.


Last Friday we put Angel into the local kennel for an overnight stay so that we could spend the day at South West Rocks to see Stephen's sister, Robyn sing at the local country club with her quartet Sharp Focus. The 4 girls sang up a storm with their barber shop harmonies of Christmas songs to an auditorium full of local senior citizens. They even managed to get 3 of the male seniors to dress up in drag as part of the act. The notion of prim and proper little old ladies definitely went out the window when they roared with laughter seeing the men strut their stuff on stage. As Robyn and girls had to make tracks back to Sydney immediately after the show, we explored the little village and had lunch at the local Seabreeze Hotel (across rd from C/pk and beach). I highly recommend their fish & chips - best I've had in ages.

The next day we took a drive to visit the Dorrigo National Park, which is another reason why we needed to have Angel doggy sat for the day. The Dorrigo Rainforest Centre has a spectacular skywalk going out above the rainforest treetops which I had been keen to see. We were not disappointed - the view was MAGnificent (see photos). We headed into Dorrigo to take a look around and stumbled across the Dangar Falls just a km or 2 out of town. The falls were definitely falling which probably is thanks a lot to the heavy rain which fell the previous day. While we were there a guy and his wife struck up a conversation with us. It turned out that Phil and Jan have been travelling around Oz for the last 8 mths in a caravan and were also staying at Coffs, so we stayed talking to them in the carpark for ages getting lots of good travelling tips. Really nice people.

On the local side, we've been exploring the shops up here (of course). Coffs Harbour has a CBD area just off the Pacific Hwy with a pedestrian friendly, flag lined shopping street. Then about 1km up the Pacific Hwy heading north you have the Park Beach Plaza, full of boutiques, shoe shops, Target, BigW and Woolworths. There is a Homebase shopping area just across from the Park Beach Plaza with all the furniture stores, auto parts, pet stores, etc. So everything is conveniently laid out. On the approach into Coffs there is a big Bunnings and all the auto mechanical places. I've also found quite a few recycled clothing shops which I love rummaging through.

Emerald Beach is the next headland just to the north of us. We took a drive up there the other day to take a look back at Moonee Beach. It was a fantastic view looking back but also looking out at one of the 5 Solitary Islands which has the white lighthouse. The headland area is called the Moonee Beach Nature Reserve (National Park) and we got to see 3 kangaroos who were grazing in bush just next to the car park, they seemed used to people being around as the surfers come up there all the time to access the beach. There is a paved walk around the headland which we'll do another day when the feet aren't so sore.

Nearly forgot, we couldn't resist calling in to the BIG Banana for a banana split each. Just as nice as I remember but not as cheap. There is a great puzzle shop there which had the largest jigsaw puzzle in the southern hemisphere on display 18,000 pieces. Sadly, it is now no longer the largest as someone has now put out a 24,000 piece puzzle. Anyone got nothing to do for a couple of years ???

Anyway, that's all for now. Bye, Rosy