Today involved much more fizgigging around than yesterday. It started at 4:30am when my parents decided that that was the perfect time to start yapping away. It was only when Mum realised it was 5am and not 6am that they decided to go back to sleep. By then however, the damage had been done. I got perhaps another half an hours' sleep before they decided that 6am would be a good time to get up. Not impressed.
To church - Coffs Harbour Presbyterian Church which was actually quite full because three services had been merged. It's quite scary - Mum knows people all over the state because of her PWA connections, so she knew three or four people there.
Next a trip out to Muttonbird Island to get a view of Coffs Harbour and a stack of photos. Didn't see any muttonbirds, wrong season and time of day for that.
View of South Breakwall from Muttonbird Island
Very blue flower on Muttonbird Island
Marina at Coffs Harbour from Muttonbird Island
Marina at Coffs Harbour
Made the obligatory stop at the Big Banana. Major tourist trap, but since I hadn't seen the thing in 15 years we stopped for a photo. And saw our first police pull over of the day (we saw about 8 cop cars all up today). At the Big Banana they had a very cool map up on the wall which has all of Australia's "big" things. I reckon it'd be cool to go on a trip around Australia to see them all (I'm sure it's been done). One of the things you could do with infinite time and money.
Metal A-Frame near the Big Banana
The Big Banana at Coffs Harbour
Dad and me at the Big Banana
Photo by Mum
Some of the Big Things around Australia
Up the hill from the Big Banana was Sealy Lookout, which offered great views of Coffs. The drive up was pretty amazing too - through all the banana plantations perched precariously on the slopes of *very* steep hills.
View of Coffs Harbour from Sealy Lookout
Instead of coming back down again to the highway, we migrated north through a forestry road, and some spectacular eucalyptus forests. Some of the stands of trees were magnificent.
The Vincent Tree
The Vincent Tree
Tree strangled by figs
Eucalypt forest
Eucalypt forest
Back to the highway and onwards and upwards. We made a pitstop in Woodburn where I lost it briefly because I'd been sitting in the sun without air conditioning and was overheated. Felt much better after a Vodka and Cranberry Magnum yummmm :)
Richmond River at Woodburn
We also watched the car clock over 100000km.
Clocking the car at 100000km
Further on in Ballina we stopped to take a photo or three of the "Big Prawn" !
The Big Prawn at Ballina
The Big Prawn at Ballina
Photo by Mum
We finally arrived at my uncle's place around 5:30pm. After being invited for dinner, we went and found our hotel/motel, picked up some supplies and came back for an instant family reunion, and an instant feast. Very pleasant evening was had by all.
Magpie at Col and Sandra's
Possum at Col and Sandra's
Possums at Col and Sandra's
Now to sleep, and very much looking forward to spending the night in a completely separate room to my parents :):)
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