Goodbye Iluka - Hello Wardell

Our last few days at Iluka were spent mainly under umberellas and keeping out of the rain. Luckily on Saturday morning the it was fine so we finally caught the little ferry over to Yamba for morning tea and back. The trip across and down the Clarence River takes about 30 mins and is quite scenic. There were only 4 of us on the trip over but about 15 on the return trip. We even had a dolphin travelling with us for a bit of the trip across. Yamba is a much larger town than Iluka and it's an easy walk from the wharf into town to the shops. I highly recommend The Sound Cafe on Yamba Street for morning tea or breakfast. By the time we caught the ferry back the rain was starting and it stayed with us until Monday afternoon.

Despite all the rain, we enjoyed our stay in Iluka and the Clarence Head Caravan Park. While it is very basic and the amenities are old they were cleaned daily. The manager, Trevor is a nice guy too who was always happy to help, he even opened up the shop one afternoon for us just to buy a couple of ice creams.

We had planned to head off on Monday morning to our next stop at Wardell near Ballina but the rain was pouring down so we stayed put another day to see if it would clear up. Unfortunately, we in the middle of a rain system that stretches from Qld all the way down to Sydney. When the sun came out late on Monday afternoon we dashed out and pulled down our annex and packed up as much as we could ready to head off the next morning. So yesterday we hit the road again - in the rain. It was my turn to tow the caravan and although the road was very wet, we had a good trip thanks to the 4 new tyres we put on Herc last week and the fact there wasn't much traffic to speak of.

We're now settled in at the Sandalwood Van & Leisure Village in Wardell just 10kms south of Ballina. It's a very nice caravan park with a pool (hooray!) and good amenities. Plus the best thing is that the caravan sites are drive-through which made my job fairly easy. I just had a bit of trouble lining the caravan up to be straight alongside the concrete slab where the annex goes. But we're sort of straight and the annex is up - so life is good. Although the caravan park is technically it's not on the Pacific Highway, the highway is only across the other side of some horse paddocks (yes, people can come here with horses as well as dogs). You don't notice the traffic noise during the daytime but last night the sound of the distant trucks rumbling up and down the highway never stopped. Thank god for earplugs! That's all for now.