Rain, rain, go away (Apr. 11/09 - Coffs Harbour, Australia, mileage 320km)

We were eager to get going this morning, as our hippy neighbours and their perma-junk yard of a trailer and their car with an axel ripped out, dumpy toys and random crap strewn all over the place, nasty dreadlocks and two screaming toddlers (who can blame them?), it was more than we could take. Is smoking pot at 7am in front of a baby illegal? Anyway, the road beckoned. We opted for the scenic route to the coast, through a couple towns so small that we couldn't decide if we had driven through them or not. The narrow road snaked its way along ridges and past macadamia plantations before emerging at the one and only Byron Bay. Unfortunately, coastal rain clouds had opened up, dumping heavy rain on the hordes of tourists that wandered the streets and were headed to and from the beach. On a normal day, this looked like a lovely, albeit touristy, spot, with its wide beaches and rocky headland topped with an old lighthouse. It also didn't help that it was not only a long weekend, but a long weekend with the Byron Bay International Blues Music Festival, attracting tons more people and international musicians. We blame them for the rain - depressing weather for bluesy music. So we skipped the hike around the cape we had planned and instead did a drive-by to see the lighthouse and the easternmost point in continental Australia, then bee-lined it for points south.


The rain was incessant, pounding the highway so hard that it was hard to see out the windshield and hydroplaning was an issue. We cruised straight through a couple of towns we might otherwise have stopped at, but eventually it let up just in time for a lunch stop at a rest area. It just wasn't our day, apparently, as half way through preparing lunch we were swarmed by more mosquitos than I had ever seen in one place in my life, and the rain started up suddenly, soaking us and our sandwiches. We took a detour to see a little fishing town and eventually stopped at Coffs Harbour for the day. This place is busy with tourists, surfers, and people who have come to see the supposedly famous giant banana statue. Between the giant shopping mall and the beach, we found a campground that charged ridiculous prices but was almost full - likely the same scenario would be found at the other places in town. So we coughed up the $30 for a patch of grass and navigated our way through the campground that looked like it needed its own postal code. Surrounding the water slides, trampolines, tennis courts, and playgrounds, were permanent residents' cabins and network of trailers, tents, campers, motorhomes, and tent trailers so massive that we wondered why people would come here for their vacation. Why leave your house to camp within three feet of your closest 1000 neighbours? Luckily, our patch of grass was in the far corner of the grounds between the last two vacant sites. Phew! Just as it was getting dark, a bus pulled up and unloaded a bunch of 20-somethings racing around setting up brown canvas tents while the staff set up tables for dinner. It reminded us a lot of Africa and how much we don't miss those smelly tents!