We’re spending our third and final night in Ballina, near the top of the NSW coast. The weathers been almost perfect, 25° days, moderate humidity, soft breezes, and cool, but not cold nights. Perhaps we’ve now caught up with the best of weather. We hope so.

This morning we took a trip into Byron Bay. In a lot of ways it absolutely lived up to its reputation – that of being stuck in a 60s time warp. The shops are full of flared trousers and jeans, some with embroidered hems, some with lace trim, and some left plain. Cafes have signs outside advertising their free trade coffee with signs such as, ‘in the name of love’. And home ware shops have plenty of ‘peace’ and ‘love’ signs amongst their flowery merchandise, and patchwork upholstered furniture.

It let itself down somewhat though as far as being truly reminiscent of the sixties. It cost us $8.00 to park for two hours. And it’s very clock governed. It was around 11.30, and as our parking was due to expire at around 12.15, we decided to have an early lunch. Repeatedly, we were told only breakfast was available, lunch isn’t available until noon. As we’d had breakfast many hours before, we opted for an icecream instead to keep us going till we arrived home.

The beach at Byron Bay almost rivalled Cable Beach in Broome. We wished we’d packed our bathers, as i think we may have managed to get in for a bit of swim. Never mind, eating on our ice cream overlooking the beach was a pretty good second.

Ballina is a much bigger than I’d thought. It has most of the main stores, in fact Pauls in at Bunnings now for some male retail therapy. We’re on the north side of the town, only three miles from Lennox Head. Lennox Head is a much smaller, understated version of Byron. The beach doesn’t look as good for swimming, but it’s been a fabulous walking beach for us while we’ve been here.

Tomorrow we’re heading to the Gold Coast. My sister -in-law, Marie is over from NZ visiting her sister who lives in Burleigh Heads. We didn’t think we’d be any where near this far up, so didn’t think we were going to get a chance to catch up. But here we are – into Queensland tomorrow. We’ve booked a caravan site at Tallabudgera Creek near Marie’s sister’s place for a week. Apparently it’s within walking distance. Since booking I’ve read reviews on things to do in the Gold Coast, and Burleigh Heads beach is listed as the number one thing to do – bonus! And second bonus, the caravan park gets good reviews as well, and offers 7 nights for the price of 5. How good’s that!

We’re settling into our life on wheels again very, very nicely. However, we’re still waiting to hear if Paul’s dad’s house sale is going to go through. The last of the enginneers and surveyors tests have now been completed for the buyer. A number of problems have been found, and some are quite significant. The buyer is awaiting the outcome from his bank to see if they will still approve his mortgage. It’s a bit scary to be feeling so settled into this wonderful life again, knowing that if the bank comes back with an unfavourable response, it will be snatched from us, and postponed again. We can only but hope, and live each day in the glorious sunny moments currently available to us. We will know for sure any day now.