We’ve just spent three nights at another private campsite on a Billabong, Lakeview, near Beachmere. Not quite as nice as Corindi Park, but still a welcome oasis to break up the minefield of caravan parks. Corindi park is free of domestic pets so wildlife abounds, where as Lakeview allows domestic pets. Perfect for dog and cat owners, and if we were travelling with a pet it would be perfect for a lengthy stay. The only drawback is birds and Roos aren’t so prevalent with dogs and cats around. Whilst definitely second best to Corindi Park for people travelling without a pet, still wonderful. We so much appreciate these lovely people opening their private properties to us.

Lakeview is about mid way between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, so we used the opportunity for day visits to both. Sunday we took a day trip into Brisbane, our first to this capital city. Such a family friendly city. We did a circuit starting at the City Botanical Gardens, then over a bridge to the impressive tourist and family friendly Southbank. Hope the myriad of photos will do it justice.

And all along the walk opens to all manner of free entertainments for children and adults alike.  Firstly, several pools of varying depths.

There were the usual buskers – this one entertained us for the better part of half an hour. Unlike many, who these days are asking for donations of up around the $20 when passing around their hat, this one quoted the price of both a small beer and a large beer, and suggested we consider his show worth the price of a beer and donate accordingly. We willingly dropped enough in his hat to buy him a large one. But he clearly indicated he would be happy with the lesser amount if that was all one could afford. Refreshing! Of course payment isn’t obligatory, so for many they get to enjoy a quality performance absolutely free.

Adults weren’t forgotten, further along the walkway there was a small peaceful rainforest for a little breath of nature, and a Napalese peace temple for quiet reflection (photo didn’t do that justice, so not included). There were family priced take away food outlets in abundance, but tucked away to the rear, a refreshing change for the parents who take the time to pack their own quality picnics or barbecue for their families. The takeaway places weren’t  in your face, screaming out – ‘buy me, buy me’. You actually had to look for them. There were heaps of clean picnic tables, and heaps of free barbecues for cooking on. Yes, with place like these I would love to have my time over with Kelvin and Alice and taken them there when they were of an age to appreciate it all.

With Brisbane being so tourist and family friendly, and with the Sunshine Coast one side and the Gold Coast the other, and with all the theme parks close by, it really is a Mecca for tourists. I’m sure if I were a visitor to Australia, of all the cities that I could visit, I think Brisbane with its multitude of attractions and almost perfect climate  beats all the other cities and states by an Australian country mile. And for families – wow!!! A real treat.

We didn’t take advantage of one of the free bikes to get ourselves around, preferring to do our city site seeing on Shanks Pony. After the Southbank we crossed another bridge bringing us back into the city centre. In the middle of the main mall there’s an area that looks to be set up for free concerts. We arrived only for the closing 15 minutes or so of Brisbane’s Wind and Brass Orchestra’s free two hour concert. The tunes we did get to enjoy  were, the theme song fromThe Sound of Music, plus Doh a Deer, My Favourite Things, and I think there was one other as well from that musical before they finished with a rousing rendition of 76 Trombones. They were pretty damned good, and I was sorry to have missed the earlier part of their performance.

Now I’m going to contradict myself – the climate although warmer than most other capital cities isn’t warm enough for us. We had some unseasonably warm weather while on the Gold Coast with peak daytime temperatures of around 27°. But as I said, that was unseasonal. It’s now back down to the low 20s, with very cool nights. We’ve had our diesel heater running all night several times, which isn’t in our plan.

We’re now in Hervey Bay for a quick three day look. Most likely after that we’ll head north quickly, up to Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays.

We’ve wanted to see Hervey Bay for ages now. So far, it’s been a little disappointing, but we haven’t seen the main part yet. Guess we’d better leave any final judgements out until we’ve had a good look. We had two caravan parks in mind near by before our arrival. We had a look at both, gave them a wide berth, and have opted for a Big 4 at Point Vernon. Reading reviews on Wiki, it appears theft is prevalent in the van parks at night, but we think this one looks less open to unwelcome visitors looking around for things to help themselves to. We’ve also been reading some generalised area views, and although this is an area were a lot of people retire to, it’s also apparently an area that is home to a few to many undesirables, bogans, to use the Australian term. Hence our three day stay rather than our originally planned week long stay. Perhaps I’ve jumped the gun though with my judgement. Watch this space…..

My Sister-in-law, Marie, is over from NZ visiting her sister, who lives on Queensland’s Gold Coast. We hadn’t expected to be any where near close by before Marie returns to NZ on 26th May. When we realised how close we were, we decided to make an unplanned stop in at the Gold Coast to catch up.

Why unplanned? Because the Gold Coast has a reputation of being spoilt by overpopulation. After being here for 4 days staying at Tallebudgera Creek, near Burleigh Heads, we’ve formed our own opinion – Wow!!! A big, big reminder that spectacular is rarely kept a secret, and the more spectacular, the more the crowds will gather in appreciation. We’re so pleased we didn’t bi-pass the Gold Coast.

We’re very close to Broadbeach, where a four day Blues Festival is happening this week-end. Again, Wow! and it’s all free. There’s several stages in different areas with a variety of Blues artists playing. The main mall area has been closed to traffic, and a big stage erected at one end complete with a huge screen for those who aren’t close enough to get a full appreciation of the artists up close.

The biggest name there is perhaps Eric Burden and the Animals. For those of you not old enough to have instant recall of The animals biggest claims to fame, you may still have had the pleasure of have hearing their biggest song – The House of the Rising Sun. Eric Burden is playing there today, but we had other plans for today, so will miss out on seeing him.

We did however spend a very pleasurable day there yesterday. We purchased ourselves  a bus pass and headed down there early where we walked from stage area to stage area enjoying all the different artists. While meandering between stages we grazed all the way from the dozens, or more likely, hundreds of food outlets. Perhaps that doesn’t read quite right – there were lots of food stalls and restaurants, and we did graze all day, but we by no means sampled hundreds, nor dozens, but a good few all the same. There were many, so many, that despite the crowds none were crowded, and each had to compete for their share of the market. Specials abounded.

Our favourite act of yesterday was a couple of older guys singing what I’d call real Delta style Blues, Dom Turner and Phil Wiggens. They both sang, Phil played the guitar, and Dom played the mouth organ. When I say he played the mouth organ, I really mean he played the mouth organ. He almost made it talk. I could have listened to them all day.

We wandered down to the beach for some cooling breeze mid afternoon. There were craft stalls lining the grassed area to browse through, and then beach volley ball to while away fifteen minutes or so.

I saw my first ever, ‘one man band’ – Uptown Brown. I’ve heard of a one man band, but never actually seen one in the flesh. The photo we snapped doesn’t do him justice. He stamped his feet according to how he wanted the two drums on his back to beat. I couldn’t count the amount of instruments he played solo, and couldn’t work out whether his act was funny, or brilliant. It was clever, that’s for sure and really something to have seen. It looked exhausting.

The Gold Coasts beautiful beaches have attracted the crowds. The crowds have built their hi rise flats and the area has become densely populated. The big density population allows for such things as a four day FREE Blues festival. Ya gotta love that! I know we did.

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.

I’m sitting on the banks of a billabong at Corindi Park typing this. It’s almost 4pm and the birds are starting to come in for the night. This is our third (and last) night at this little oasis, and if this evening is the same as the past two evenings, the next two to three hours will see literally thousands of birds descend to the trees in and around the billabong. After the birds quiet down for the night, the stars come out, and if the birds number in the thousands, the visible stars must quadruple that at least.

Corindi Park is a private property of 22 acres. The owners obviously love and care for their property very much, and encourage a multitude of fauna to share their land. There’s several billabongs on the property, some with small water lilies and others with big lily blooms amongst the lily pads. Sitting outside our caravan as the sun goes down, watching the wading birds bobbing on top and around the lily pads, and listening to the evening bird song grow in volume as the visiting birds settle in for the night will make a lasting memory.

The billabong is so still, allowing reflections in the water to shine clearly.

The sun rises over the water hole opposite our caravan in the morning. In the afternoon as the sun sinks behind our van, the dying rays light up the trees giving them an orange glow that rivals the prettiest of autumn colours.

Today, we drove from here to Elland near Grafton and visited Abbey. Abbey is the gorgeous red heeler whom we had the pleasure of looking after along with her canine friend Riley, 22 cows, Charlie the rooster and his little harem of chooks, and several wild birds and parrots. For those of you who have been following this blog, you may remember our 6 – 7 weeks on the hobby farm. We remember it well, it was the stand out high-light of our first year on the road. Sadly, only Abbey remains of the two dogs and the chooks. It was around 120km round trip to see Abbey, testament to how special a dog she is. We wondered if she would remember us as clearly as we remember her. I think she did.

Both the hobby farm at Elland with the happiest domesticated animals i’ve ever seen, and this gorgeous property causes one to reflect on life in cities as opposed to life in both the oasis of Corindi Park, and the Nirvana at Elland. What comes to mind are words similar to those in the song by Dianna Ross, ‘Reflections of, the way life used to be’, or in this case, ‘Reflections of, the way life aught to be.’ Cares and worries have no place here, and one can feel their worries drifting away and being replaced by the most amazing feelings of peace.

We are so grateful that the owners of these two properties have allowed us the privilege of having a small taste of their little patches of paradise.

We’re almost at the end of a week long stay overlooking the beautiful Tilligerry Creek – beautiful some days, but still a bit to far south for great weather at this time of year.

We’ve enjoyed pretty sunsets,

and walks along the creek enjoying the tranquility.

We’ve had some lovely happy hours with friends, and shared meals. It’s been lovely to catch up. Paul’s taken on board some of Bruce’s ideas for small improvements to the van, and I’m sure thats visa versa. So, a few minor tweaks to our accommodation are on the horizon.

Pauls given the van a much needed clean, including cut and polishing the roof, and has put a glaze on the rest of the van. The fibreglass tends to get chalky if ignored, particularly on the roof and nose cone, so 6 months in open storage had left it looking worse for wear. All shiny now, looks like a new van. Not all for just cosmetics though. We’re sure when it’s shiny it helps reduce wind drag slightly giving improved mileage, and it definitely reduces dead bug adherence.

When the winds not blowing the water is so calm, like a mirror pond.

But, the wind is often up, make it to cold to enjoy sitting out in the evening. We thought we’d caught up to the more pleasant weather, but not quite yet. So, our tentative plans to start meandering up the coast from here are postponed and we’ll again put some miles under the wheels. All the little nooks and crannies of this coast will await our return for exploration at more seasonal time of year. Next stop, just north of Coffs Harbour for a few days, then on towards Queensland. The weather’s looking good north of Brisbane on the Sunshine Coast, so I think we’ll just have to bite the bullet and get there sooner rather than later.

Tonight we share Wendy and Bruce’s hospitality for the last time in this area. We’ve been promised one of Wendy’s famous cheesecakes, albeit an adapted recipe more suited to being made in a caravan. If you haven’t had one of Wendy’s cheesecakes – well, you’re missing something special. She’s up there with the best of cheesecake maker.

I’m sure we’ll catch up again somewhere further up in Queensland but for now, we leave tomorrow.