Bananas and Bats - 30th Dec

Today was another travel day up the coast to Grafton. First stop was Coffs Harbour or “Coffs” which has the “big banana” to demonstrate the town's $70m a year banana industry.



It was hot in Coffs. We took a walk along the old jetty and watched people throwing themselves off the side of it into the sea. It was quite a drop!!! We would have liked a swim as the beach was really appealing however we decided to crack on with the journey and stop off further up the coast.

Beach at Coffs

Just north of Coffs we turned off the highway to the rather attractively named Emerald Beach. A lot of the beaches on the East Coast are in the middle of no-where with very little amenities and this is when the van came into its own doubling up as a changing room, toilet block and cafe in one. We used all of these facilities and headed to the beach with the body board. The waves were HUGE and for me a bit scary. You couldn't swim in the sea but had to surf or jump the waves to save yourself from being knocked over.

Wicked Campervan in the car park

After this exhilarating experience we moved on to the sea side town of Wooloolabba. We admired the views from a lookout and then decided to take a look to see if there was a beach on the other side of town. We were driving along a road when we suddenly spotted loads of fruit bats (aka flying foxes) in the trees. There were loads of them hanging there. Some were awake and stretching their wings and there was an eerie screeching sound. They seemed to prefer a certain type of tree to hang from because as we drove on they suddenly stopped.

I'd set Andy the challenge of photographing a Kookaburra sitting on electric wire (as I used to sing about this in Brownies). The challenge was fulfilled on the way back along bat road.

Kookabarra

Back in Wooloolabba centre we parked, used the services of the multi-facilitated van and went back on the beach and into the sea where the waves were thankfully a little calmer.

Final stop of the day was Grafton where our campsite was booked and where we'd be spending New Year. We'd tried to get into some other sites along the coast but they'd been fully booked. The Rough Guide described Grafton as a 'genteel, old-fashioned place with wide-tree lined avenues' so we weren't too worried. We arrived about 7ish and the town seemed very quiet and a bit soulless but we decided to hold judgement to the next day.

We checked into the campsite then went to Coles, our favourite Aussie store, for some food and beverages before settling in for the night.