New South Wales part 2 - The Cyclone Saga

Important information upfront: We’re fine and safe, just a bit soggy from the rain.

For those of you following the news in Australia you probably heard that (ex-) Cyclone Alfred was due to hit the East Coast this week. For those of you vaguely following our location you would know we were heading up the East Coast this week. Bad timing and silver linings. Read on to hear all about our second half of New South Wales - The Cyclone Saga!

Sunday 2nd March: Sydney to Martinsville

A sluggish morning of washing and cleaning meant we didn’t get on our way from Sydney until around lunchtime, but we still had a good few stops along the route. First stop was the Glenorie Bakery which won Australia best bakery for 3 years in a row and promised award winning pies. It was probably the busiest bakery we have seen in Australia but the pie, for Australian standards, did live up to expectations! Steak, bacon and cheese topped pastry was delicious before our walk.

Next stop was the ‘Mooney Mooney Mega Cave’. After a horrendous windy wiggly road with 5km/hr bends through the Galston Gorge, a road I would question was suitable for vehicles longer than 6m let alone the 7.5m it said, we were grateful to join the M2! We parked on the side of a B-road even though we weren’t sure if we were allowed and started on our trip. It promised a boring start and a rock scramble to finish but ours was not a boring start for poor Mike walked into a MASSIVE spider web, it was only on the way back we saw the size of the spider which owned it, a chilling viewing!! We continued on our way with a stick each and waved it around in front of us to avoid any further cobweb issues! It proved useful for moving the very spiky branches out of the way as well. After about 45 minutes we made it to the cave. While it was incredibly impressive, it wasn’t what we would call a cave but more a massive overhang rock. That being said a picture from our phone can’t do it justice. We did explore the waterfall and mini cave a bit further along and saw some big eucalyptus trees too. In the distance we could see the M2 bridge but couldn’t get a good photo of how impressively high it was!

A short drive away was the Somersby falls. It was a 3-tier waterfall. The top tier was pretty disappointing, the middle tier really cool, the bottom one was wide, and the water travelled under where we stood on the rock for the photo!

Final stop: our first wilderness free camp in New South Wales - the Pines campground, a cool little place quiet and secluded, we weren’t surprised after the very rumbly 8km of logging truck road to get there!

Monday 3rd: Martinsville to Shoal Bay

One month of campervanning so far!

After an eventful evening where we thought we were watching a soap opera as a couple set up their camp in the dark for the first time, we had a wee lie in before starting our day! First stop was caves beach, a stunning beach with epic waves even saw a whole heap of older ladies coming out of the water with body boards. Online did say it was best to visit Caves Beach at low tide to be able to explore the caves, but we forgot that until we arrived! We managed to walk around one of the sets of rocks to see the caves, so it was a nice little stop at 10am in the morning.

Next stop another ‘big’ thing, this was the Big Kookaburra. Pretty big and very well designed, possibly the best big thing we have seen so far. The town it was in also helped us find our next couple of stops in the Hunter Valley - the smelly cheese shop, it definitely lived up to it’s name and Mike loved the cheese room!

No visit to the Hunter Valley is complete without a winery stop so we headed on to Piggs Peake. For a last minute find this was incredible. They don’t particularly grow their own grapes, but they sure know how to make a bloody good wine! While we were there, they had a batch of red wine just starting the fermentation process, we were allowed to plunge the lot and taste one of the grapes from the top, a cool insight into the process. The guy behind the Cellar Door who did our tasting had so much knowledge and was super helpful when it came to what wines to try. Chloe tried around 12 different wines and safe to say I was the designated driver after that! We came away with ‘Lemon Pig’ semillon but the ‘Rosed Pork’ rose and the ‘Pig Juice’ sweet fizzy red definitely were favourites as well!

Next stop was the Hunter Belle Cheese room, because cheese and wine makes a perfect pairing! We had the Cheese experience of 10 different cheeses and if we were made of money would probably have purchased all of them! We came away with a Triple Cream Brie but the pickled Cheddar and the Garlic goats cheese were also firm favourites!

On our way to our free camp for the evening at Zenith Beach we took a slight detour to see the Big Ugg. They were definitely big but the kookaburra was hard to beat today. We settled into the van for a chicken curry dinner and then headed to the beach after dinner. Falling asleep to the sound of the waves is magical!

Tuesday 4th: Shoal Bay to Port Macquarie

Our first stop if the morning was the Tomaree Head walk and the WW2 gun emplacement track. It was a very rainy morning but that gave for a beautiful rainbow on our short and steep mountain walk. We even managed to see some thirsty cookaburras and hungry lorakeets. The view from the top was really nice although somewhat diminished by the grey skies. On the way down we took a side shoot to the gun emplacements from WW2: 2x 6 inch 3 pounder guns were placed and you could also see one of the watch huts too. Not sure how much longer they will be around though, the metal was rusting away and breaking off! A lovely walk meant we had earnt some breakfast at a local cafe (mainly to charge the laptop for blog purposes!!) a delicious avocado on toast and some scones at Mermaids bar were delicious!

Next stop was Seal Rock and Sugar Loaf Lighthouse. We expected to see seals given the name but turns out there is no longer a colony there! Despite the rain and very rough water we still had a lovely swim and watched some incredible surf boarders who were far out the back! We even saw one of Australias biggest lizards, a monitor lizard, patrolling the carpark! We continued along the road to the Sugar Loaf Lighthouse, a short 650m walk but the lighthouse was very quaint and you can see exactly why there have been so many shipwrecks on/as round the seal rocks area!

We made our way north/up the coast to Forster for another BIG thing in our journey, this time we were very much disappointed in the big turtle. Use the slider to see the comparison with Chloe on it for scale!

We heading to tacking Point Lighthouse for a quick walk down to the Port Beaches. It was a beautiful lighthouse with stunning lookouts but the weather wasn’t particularly beautiful! Tonight we are staying in Port Macquarie, a location known for having Koalas roaming the trees so Chloe has high hopes!

Wednesday 5th: Port Macquarie to Coffs Harbour

Well a late night doom scroll meant we had a morning of replanning. It turns out that cyclone Alfred is on the horizon and in the perfect location for where we were planning on heading! We did some digging, some research and have decided that a campervan is not particularly cyclone friendly so an Airbnb in Coffs Harbour for a couple of nights it is! We didn’t want to miss out on the promise of Koalas so we headed to Kooloonbung Nature Reserve which said koala spotting was a regular occurrence.

Mike: “it’s a bit grey should we take a coat”

Chloe: “Nah we will be alright I’m sure it’s just a drizzle”

10 minutes later, drenched to the core we returned to the van to get coats…! While our new walk was not fruitful for Koalas, we did see an incredible number of Flying Foxes just chilling in the trees, considering they are supposed to be asleep in the day they were very noisy and active!! We did find an unexpected ‘Big’ item in the park though which was a big Lizard, definitely not disappointing and this time I’m used for scale!

With the lack of Koalas in the wild we headed to the Koala Hospital a sure-fire way to see Koalas, open every day apart from Christmas Day according to the website. Well, it turns out Koalas don’t like cyclones either, so this was closed due to high winds. We have gone from the platypus saga to the Koala hunt!

We headed on our way to Southwest Rocks and by this point we were very hungry! We found the most delicious Toastie shop called Steam and Cedar, where Dan, the owner, made us a ‘Trev’ and a ‘Blue Day Break’ toastie. If you ever happen to be in the area we 100% recommend. Not only was Dan super friendly and calm but he sure knows how to make a toastie! We also found a cool mural and some humorous souvenirs.

Bellies filled we headed to Hat Head for the Korogoro Track which promised some of Australias best views. Well, we are sure they are beautiful but today was not the day for the beauty, more a day for wind, rain and clouds! We did however see heaps of lively Kangaroos and even managed to see a tiny Joey still in it’s mother’s pouch. Here are some of our beautiful views…

With the weather getting a bit worse, we headed on our way to Coffs Harbour to check in to our Airbnb. After 30 nights in a campervan the little flat we had felt huge and like luxury! It promised views of the sea and we had a laugh with our lovely hosts about it! Here is our base for 2 nights whilst we wait out Cyclone Alfred which is due to hit during the early hours of Thursday!

Thursday 6th: Coffs Harbour

Well the Cyclone still hasn’t hit…we are pretty certain the weather here is no different to what it’s going to be like on a daily basis in the UK! We had one stop we skipped yesterday and that was Dangar Falls in Dorrigo National park. Our lovely hosts warned us about the road and the waterfalls on the side of the road. Waterfall Way definitely lives up to its expectations, Chloe did her best to film the roadside waterfalls as we drove past. We passed through some quaint towns, which on a dry day we would probably have explored, but we had only 1 mission today - to make it to Dangar and back again before the floods and road closures!

Dangar Falls did not disappoint! The rain of the last couple of days meant the falls were in full force and the water was disgusting! We were one of 3 couples there at the time and it seems everyone had the same idea, drive, park, quick look, get back in! A long way for a quick stop but considering the river had burst it’s bank we couldn’t actually walk to the base of the falls anyway!

Back at our AirBnb we settled into a cuppa and a biscuit when the owner knocked on the door. She was very aware of the fact we were due to head off on Friday morning - turns out the cyclone had delayed its landfall now until Saturday am/late Friday night. Guess we will have to wait it out and take another night here.

We headed on a short walk down the hill to another tourist treat - the Big Banana. Probably the most iconic big thing in Australia it was huge, you can even walk through the middle without ducking! We explored the free section and got our memory Magnet - we opted for a blue floaty VW campervan to help us recall the reason we were in Coffs so long.

Friday 7th: Coffs Harbour again

Well well well. The bad weather truly hit over night, with gale force winds and rain lashing the windows, we were grateful not to be at a campsite dashing outside to reach a toilet! We treated ourselves to some pancakes and we decided a day of admin was in the plan, so we headed down to the Park Beach Plaza Shopping Centre for the first mop chop while travelling – no luscious mullet’y locks for me!

We couldn’t come to Coffs Harbour and not see the beaches, right? So we went down to the waterfront in the van and the rain was so miserable we didn’t even get it of the car. Crazy waves, lots of rain, lots of locals doing the same as us. To make the most of the miserable day we decided to visit the nearby “Carobana Carob Confectionary” shop for some tasty chocolate-alternate treats. There was lots of tasty sample to try of carob-coated delights: our favourites were coated honeycomb and coated ginger pieces so we bought a bag or two to get us through the rainy days.

We arrived back to the Airbnb and it was blog and job time: washing on and laptop out we were ready to finally catch up with the writing. Finally a little bit of Overcooked on the Switch to relax. Hopefully the Cyclone passes quickly because Chloe is getting itchy feet and wants to be outside (Future Mike here: it didn’t!).

Saturday 8th: Coffs Harbour again again

We woke to the good news that Alfred was no longer a cyclone and more a tropical low, I had high hopes for moving on and heading towards either Byron Bay (the costal route) or Glen Innes (the inland route). All good plans of heading on got stopped quickly when we found we were surrounded by road closures – see the screen shot for the orange and blue closures! Alas we have had to stay in Coffs Harbour again! There was no way we were staying inside all day again though and after a bacon and egg brekkie we headed to Sealy Point/Forest Sky Pier for the lookout. The sign on the end really rubbed it in when it described what we should be able to see but it made us smile!

We then went on another walk to see the Korora Lookout along Gumgali track. It was only a 30-minute return walk, which was a relief as the rain came back. Getting back in the van was a relief! A slight downside of the walk was the discovery that a somewhat plump leech had attached itself to Chloe’s foot, only to be discovered back at the AirBnB when it was so full it fell off.

The afternoon brought back the horrible wind and rain, so much so we had to push the water out of the front door where it was rapidly coming in, while we waited for a spare towel to fill the gap. So much for it not being a cyclone anymore! While we sat and played some more Overcooked, Chloes phone binged with a text from the Air BnB owner, Gail, inviting us to dinner with her and her husband for homemade pizza. Everyone who knows me knows pizza is life, and we headed on over to their house/upstairs for the evening.

We had a cracking evening! Gail and James were delightful hosts, and we ate pizza and chatted until well past dark. We were even serenaded by a chorus of frogs in the nearby reserve, and one little frog was brave enough to stick to the window for a while too. A warm, dry end to a very rainy day.

And thats the blog finally caught up! Check back soon for our next blog post as we head up to Queensland and the aftermath of ex-Cyclone Alfred.