the sites of NSW

Well it has been a crazy few days, all the kids have had vomiting and school sores, finally after visiting a few doctors it looks like we might be getting healthy again.  

We stayed a couple of nights in Bellingen so we could explore the Dorrigo World Heritge Rainforest and its absolutely stunning waterfalls.  It was so worth the drive out. We checked out the rainforest centre were I tried fitting in a bit of schooling  for Alizah & Levi, I made them some questions and they had to research the answers. After all of that thinking it was time to eat before we completed the 6.5km waterfall walk. The kids read a sign that warned of leeches and what to do if they go into you eyes, we all looked at each and said "ghee, who gets a leech in their eye?" You guessed it , Zara! and what a horrible sight it was to see after she rubbed it out, an eyeball of blood. YUCK.. Quick trip to the hospital and some eye ointment and we were on our way again.

Next stop Nambucca heads for a play in the park and a lay on the beach.  With so much to see on this coastline we kept moving and before we know it, we had to pull up for the night. I must say I do love the Camps 6 book, but OMG the directions to the free parks are quite hard to understand. Driving through a state forest on dirt roads and just hoping we find it is really very stressful, then when we did find it in the dark mind you, the fridge used all our battery and we had no lights and no real food for dinner. Rule No 1 BE PREPARED! definitely wont forget that one again.  I whipped up some scrambled eggs and it was to be and early night.

The next day we headed back on the coast making a  mental note, you don't have to call into a town or place because it has a funny name, so far it hasn't been very exciting. We did however come across Trial Bay Gaol which was really interesting.

With all the driving and the tiny bladders the wee spots are quite close together, pulling into a Natural Park to go, we found we had to pay $7 for the car to go in, we thought we might be able to sneak past use the toilet without anybody noticing we didn't pay.  Jamie said he was going to have a quick look at the beach while I sat on watch in the car.  He ran back up to be and said to me 'You have to come see this, it's really pretty."  Coming from Jamie if you know him he doesn't use the word pretty very often and WOW it was beautiful, the water was the clearest I have ever seen, the mountains and the rocks looked amazing and the sand was white and went on and on. After the kids begging for a swim we decided to set up camping and they tried their hand at surfing, not being able to get up Jamie held the board while they stood on it waiting for a wave. I know its cheating, but the kids thought they were pretty clever.
Leaving this beautiful spot really was hard to do but we were hoping for some more amazing sites along the way and just up the road we found what I am calling the best part of the trip so far.  Seal Rocks. So beautiful it is so hard to explain. I could have stayed looking out over that view for the rest of my life.

After reading a NSW travelling book we picked up for free we thought that the next stop would have to be Port Stephens as it is known for the largest bottlenose dolphins area we thought it would be great to see them in the wild. But no such luck weather turned bad again and we started to pack up for our trip out to Dubbo. Kids in the car, rain falling, camper ready to wound down, then trouble hits.  It would go down the winding mechanism was jammed and we weren't going anywhere. I'm crying, trying to call caravan repair people only to find that they were at a caravan show and no one was available until Monday, this day being Saturday and the park we were at cost a fortune, I was a mess. I went and told the reception what was going on and asked if they could do us a deal due to our circumstances, one lady said, 'no way" and me breaking into tears again another lady said she could give us a discount and was very helpful. Finally get a hold of the dealer we brought it from, he gave Jamie and idea of what they would do and having such an amazing handy husband he did fix it about 4 hours later. So now we are trying to relax and enjoy the sunshine before heading for the long drive straight through to Dubbo.

Dorrigo skywalk view

so much greenery

Tristana Falls

Crystal Falls

Dangar Falls

Family Shot at Dangar

Zara's eye not to bad yet, did get a lot worse

Trial Bay Gaol

Kids new home, looking out the old kitchen window

The Bath House

Booti Booti Natural Park

Alizah

Zara

Levi

Kaine - Dinner was yummy, Dessert was better

Booti Booti view from the rocks - we had this beach almost to ourselves

The view at Seal Rocks - I would love to look at this everyday

Cystal clear water and white sand

View from Sugarloaf lighthouse Seal Rocks

Alizah - Sugarloaf lighthouse

 

Early to rise on the lookout for Dolphins - Soldier Point, Port Stephens

Today we meet a family from Victoria, with 3 little boys. We invited them along to the sand dunes at Anna Bay- Port Stephens to do a little bit of beach 4WD.  It was so much fun, we found the tallest dune and with our trusty piece of cardboard we tried sliding down the dune.  With the cardboard not working  we rolled down the dune, ran up and down  and jumped it instead.  What an enjoyable time, kids had heaps of fun and we enjoyed some other adult company.   

Top of the Dune

Those 3 little spots on top of the dunes are kids

We watched the sunset

And the moon rise