Days 199-206: Eastern Oz part 3

In which Sam and Simon take us on a magical mystery tour of the bit of New South Wales where Simon grew up, the Wineries and Granite Belt of Queensland and a few ‘Big’ things.

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Days 199 to 206 (the hinterlands of NE NSW and SW QLD)

Day 199 was New Years Day and, like many people, we spent much of the morning lying in bed, or rather I did; Juli spent quite a bit of it swimming (50 lengths) and entertaining Sam and Simon’s children, who, you will remember, were staying with Grannie while their parents partied at home.

At about teatime, we drove the kids back home where Sam and Simon were still saying goodbye to some of their friends and tidying up, so, to give them a bit more time and space, we sat with Sylvie and Ada in the TV room in front of Monsters Inc. Juli and I had somehow managed to miss this particular Pixar gem and are now eagerly looking forward to the sequel when it comes out.

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The next morning, we enjoyed another lie-in (and more Avocado on toast) while we waited for the household to ready itself for our four night trip away with Sam, Simon and the Kids.

First stop – just down the road a bit – was the Big Prawn, currently in Ballina, awaiting its second big move to a new site closer to the Pacific Highway. Australia has lots (100s?) of ‘Big’ things, but this was our first. We’d been shown a big-ish Avocado at a tropical fruits centre further up the highway – Avocados are big around here, especially at this time of year – but, frankly, it was only big for an Avocado, not big like ‘Big’ things should be, i.e. about the size of a small house. The Big Prawn did not disappoint, but had clearly seen better days. Maybe it’ll get fixed it up when it’s relocated.

After lunch in a converted chapel a little further down the highway in Broadwater, which is a sugar cane town. The chapel was jam-packed with mid 20th century memorabilia, including one of those classic Woolworth prints every home used to have featuring a nude man and woman standing on the wings of a giant swan. Original Woolies price: about a pound? Retro chic price: AU$270.

A little further down the road still, at Coffs Harbour, we saw our second big thing: the Big Banana. This one really is big: big enough to walk through, in fact Unfortunately, we got there just after closing time so we couldn’t do that, nor could we buy a Big Banana fridge magnet, which would have been an excellent addition to our collection, but hey ho.

The last stop today was Simon’s dad’s beach house in Scotts Head, where we enjoyed our first Aussie barbeque of Lamb and Kangaroo steaks, washed down with some excellent local produce. Good times.

Simon’s dad is, amongst other things, a published poet and publisher of other people’s poetry, and his house is stuffed full of both his output and that of other poets, novelists, short-story writers and biographers. We were billeted in his office/study/den/storeroom, which more or less takes up the whole of the downstairs, and has wall-to-wall bookcases. I think Juli must have thought she’d died and gone to Heaven.

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The next morning, Simon and his dad went off to the beach with the children and left the rest of the household to catch up on some sleep. Juli and I spent the morning looking at a road atlas, trying to workout how we were going to spend four days driving from Brisbane to Airlie Beach, where we going later in the month for our Whitsunday sailing adventure.

After lunch, we took ourselves off for a walk round the town and down to the beach. Our route took us up to some raked wooden benches on top of the headland. They looked like the type of seating you might find at an outdoor theatre, except that these seats were looking out to sea. Apparently they’ve been provided for spectators to watch both surfing competitions and the annual migration of Humpback Whales between August and December, so no whale spotting for us.

Back at Simon’s dad’s place, we watched Finding Nemo with the kids, another Pixar classic – and aren’t they all – which had somehow managed to pass us by. Poor little Nemo is scooped up from the Great Barrier Reef by a diving dentist and taken back to a tank in his Sydney waiting room. It was fun to see all the now familiar Sydney Harbour landmarks in a film set off Australia’s east coast, in a house on Australia’s east coast.

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Day three of our mini trip with Sam and Simon saw us saying goodbye to Simon’s dad (and Scotts Head) and moving on towards where Simon grew up. On the way we stopped off at Belinger – another groovy little cafe-culture town a bit like Byron – for coffee.

Next stop was the Dorrigo Rainforest Centre. They have a boardwalk through the forest, a bit like the ones we’ve already walked along, except this one is high off the ground at canopy level. The boardwalk emerges from the trees on to what they call their Skywalk. Aptly named, as it carries you way out over the forest below and rewards those brave enough to make it to the end with some spectacular views up and down the valley. Juli was very brave.

Skywalk

From there, we continued to drive away from the coast, up the Waterfall Way, to Armindale: Simon’s hometown. Here, we stayed in Simon’s dad’s other home, which is of an age and style known as a federation house, because it was built around the time (1901) that Australia’s independent colonies were federated into one commonwealth with its capital in Canberra.

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After breakfast in Armidale, we headed north-ish up along the ridge of the Great Dividing Range. We drove through cow country and into sheep country, where the grass is much poorer. Simon’s route afforded us some terrific views out across acres and acres of trees on rolling hills and grassland.

We drove through loads of small towns (villages, really) and even smaller hamlets of just a few houses as we travelled up into and through the Granite Belt to Ballandean, the centre of the grape and berry-fruits growing area up there. We went into a couple of wineries and one place that just makes jams before trying a few at Ballandean Estate Wines, the oldest winery in the Granite Belt, established in 1930. Naturally, we couldn’t resist and came away with a bottle of their sparkling wine for Connie and a Viogner for us.

Sam and Simon had arranged for us to stay at a motel attached to a typical Aussie pub, which had it’s own big thing… sort of: a plaster ‘big’ triceratops that failed to live up to that prefix on two counts. First, it was at best large, and second, it was, of course, substantially smaller than the thing on which it’s modelled.

 

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From Ballandean we moved on to the Girraween National Park: “A vast sculpted granite landscape with craggy outcrops and huge, rounded boulders poised aloft, colourful slabs and giant stone arches.” We went for a walk, following one of the easier marked trails through the park that took us on a circular route past one of these granite arches, this one big enough to walk through.

Granite Arch

From there, we drove back into New South Wales to Tenterfield, made famous (in Australia, anyway) by Sir Henry Parkes (MP for Tenterfield) pro federation, ‘birth of a nation’ speech in 1901.

From there we drove down off the Great Dividing Range, back towards the coast and home to Sam and Simon’s house. On the way, we were treated to more great views of almost endless grasslands with much bushier trees than we had seen further up and on the Dividing Range.

Sir Henry Parkes

Just time for a bite of tea for the children (and a cup of tea for the grown ups) before heading out once more for Coolangatta (just on the Queensland side of the NSW/QLD border, you’ll remember) where we said goodbye and thank you (very much) to Sam and Simon, who handed us back over to Connie who was there with Andrew and Jieun to collect us and for a last family meal, this time at an Indian restaurant.

Andrew and Jieun were also there to catch a plane to Korea – Jieun’s first trip back home for two and a half years – where they are getting married, as I write, in a few days time. We wish them well and much happiness in their married life together.

Fun Fair at Coolangatta

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Back at Connie’s the next day, our time with Juli’s relatives almost over, Connie had one last trip out up her sleeve. We’d been invited to lunch with Chris and Joe, two of Connie’s friends, originally from England. On the way, she took us to a local landmark she particular wanted us to see called Natural Arch, a landscape feature created when the roof above a cave, formed at one end of a gorge by water erosion over thousands of years, partially collapsed.

There’s a super, circular boardwalk down to, round and back from the arch, and, although we were not there at the right time to see them, the cave, which is plenty big enough to walk into, is home to probably millions of glow worms and are, apparently, quite a sight.

Chris and Joe have a huge, 10 acre plot on which they have twice built their own home after living originally in a caravan on it. They gave us a terrific lunch, and while we were eating it, Joe suddenly interrupted the conversation and pointed out a young Wallaby that had come down from the woods above their house to within ten feet of us. So near-perfect was its camouflage, that if Joe hadn’t told us where to look, we never would have seen it.

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Day 206 was the last of our three weeks or so staying with Juli’s Aunt Connie and her Cousin Sam. No trips out today for me; I finally got the chance to start blogging about our time here on and around the Gold Coast.

Meanwhile, Juli went back into Robina with Connie plus cousin Sam and the girls. (Simon was back at work.) Sylvie and Ada, who both have birthdays in January, where being treated to an afternoon at the Bear Factory, where Sylvie chose a Panda, she’s named Boo (possibly short for Bamboo, possibly not) while Ada plumped for something more traditional: a brown bear she’s called Happy.

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All of which brings me to the end of another chapter in our odyssey. We had a great time with Juli’s Aussie Rellies and would like to take this opportunity to thank them all, but especially Connie and Sam, who were responsible for the lions share of the looking after, feeding and entertaining we so much enjoyed. Thank you all, very much.

However, that’s far from being the end of or time in Australia. In fact, it’s really only the beginning of it. It’s not even the end of our time on the east coast, and next time I’ll write about our trip up to Airlie beach, where I’m writing this now, just before our sailing trip out to the Whitsundays. Can’t wait.

TTFN - N