Day 69 / 2016 - Newcastle to Alstonville

Saying goodbye to Newcastle and Salt Ash we headed North again to our next stop Tuncurry-Forster. This was just going to be a stop with nothing much planned just a  campspot with a river/inlet/ocean to sit beside. 

Tunncurry-Forster is a twin town with each centre on opposite sides of the river connected by a bridge. This is a popular tourist spot as it is only 4 hours from Sydney. The drive there was pretty uneventful except for the big smash at the first turn off having us to drive to the second town entrance. The traffic was banked up for miles along the Pacific Hwy fortunately only on the southbound lanes not slow us down at all.

Arriving at Tuncurry we booked into the Big 4 Great Lakes Caravan Park. Although we didn't get a water view site we could still see the river just at the end of the road. The sites were nice and big with plenty of room and easy to back onto being on an angle. There is a tractor available to push you into some of the tighter sites if you need it. Tuncurry-Forster are typical sea side towns there are river and ocean cruises you can do as well as plenty of cafes and resturaunts to eat at. We chose mainly to do walks around town out to the beaches and breakwaters. The evening would see us sit by the river sipping our water watching the boats glide past as the evening light disappeared. One evening the Caravan park put on a free sausage sizzle for the guests and we just had to do our part I was restrain and only went back for seconds.

I had been looking at the van tyres for a while now and although there was plenty of tread in the middle the edges had become quite bald and badly deformed especially the front axle tyres. Easter was coming and no doubt the police would be out in force so I didn't want to get pinged worst still if we had an accident the insurance company may not cover us. I looked at replacing just the front set as the rear set were still legal but once I had checked out the profile of the tyres we could see the new wasn't going to match the old. Bridgestone tyres in Tuncurry had a pay for 3 get 4 tyres offer so quoted at just over $100.00 per tyre we decided to replace all 4.

Leaving the caravan park we stopped in at the tyre place first. It was easy to get to and plenty of room to park the van off the road we didn't even have to unhitch. It took the guy all of about half an hour to replace all 4 tyres and we were back on the road. Moving on from Forster we decided to visit an old favorite Darlington Beach Resort just north of Coffs Harbour. They had a pay for 3 stay for 4 special on so we booked in for 4 nights. These sorts of offers make staying a bit cheaper in this case instead of being $42.00 per night it worked out to be $32.00.

Darlington Beach Resort is run by the NRMA and offers many activities such as lawn bowls, tennis, golf, bike hire, outdoor pools and spa with most of these free of charge. There is also a bistro which offers reasonably priced snacks and meals so once you arrive you really don't need to go anywhere else. There is plenty of wildlife to look at which roam freely through the park such as Kangaroos and birds and the beach is only a short walk away.

The down side of the park is there are a lot trees over sites which is great for shade but not so good for making a mess of your car and van or dropping big branches for no reason. A big branch fell one night two sites down from us fortunately no one was parked there at the time. Having been there before we new which sites we wanted which still had shade but no tree branches hanging over the top of us. The weather was also kinder to us this time around last year it rained this year much more sun with only a few showers mainly at night. While there we caught up with Winston and Sue who we had met a few years previous while heading to Darwin. They had moved house from Richmond in Melbourne to a lovely apartment over looking the ocean at Coffs Harbour quite the sea change.

Leaving Darlingon Beach after what ended up being a restfull 5 days we moved onto our next spot Alstonville. Easter had come upon us and everybody was on the move. Not only was all the accomodation along the coast booked out the prices had doubled. At Darlington Beach the place we had just left the powered sites whent from a standard rate of $42.00 per night to $92.00 per night. This is when we look for alternative places to stay such as showgrounds or free camps away from the coast.  Now this is not all bad as we tend to try out some of the more out of the way places and some can be little gems.

Alstonville is a small town only 15km away from the coastal area of Ballina and 35Km away from Byron Bay all easy day trips if you wanted to. We found this Showground almost by accident I had originally looked a going to Mullumbimby but came across this one on Wiki camps. This place offered undercovered parking for car and van and was only a 5 minute walk from the shopping village. The great thing about showgrounds is you can't book so once you are in you can stay as long as you like. Alstonville has all the basics such as Coles and cafes there is even a Dominos pizza store. 

Travelling down to Ballina we visited the Macadamia Castle just off the main Hwy near the Lenox Heads turnoff. The castle is mainly aimed towards families as it has a fun play centre and animal farm. The visitors centre has a cafe and there is a counter where you can buy roasted and flavoured Macadamia nuts.  You can sample the different flavoured Macadamias we found them okay but a bit exspensive at $9.00 for a hundred grams. We didn't go into the fun park and animal farm area at $21.00 per adult didn't see the value for us.

From here we drove into Ballina via Lenox Heads and along the coastal drive ending up at the visitors information centre. There is a maritime museum which must have the most model boats on display we had ever seem anywhere. There was WW1 and WW2 war memorbilla and the last remaining raft used in the Las Balsas expedition used to cross from Ecuador to Australia. This expedition was undertaken in the early 1970's to prove that rafts constructed from primitive techniques could survive a deep ocean crossing. On the way to our next attraction we stopped at the Big Prawn for the obligatory photo. It use to be on the outskirts of town but is slowly being swallowed up by suburbia. It is located right opposite Bunnings carpark where you can get the best photo opportunity from.

Our last place to visit was Thursday Plantation where Tea Tree plants are grown and then the oil is extracted. The whole process from plant to product is done on site and there is a visitors centre with a cafe and a theatrette where you can watch the history of Tea Tree oil making. There are lots of products available for sampling and sale. Once you have finished in the visitors centre you can take a walk through the gardens or try to find you way around the Tea Tree maze.