Home Our Trip New South Wales 45-Coffs Harbour to Hunter Valley
45-Coffs Harbour to Hunter Valley

21st January 2009.

Headed south and stopped in at a few of the coastal towns along the way, but couldn't get into any caravan parks coz of the school holidays, including the other Yamba, so continued onto Coffs Harbour where we eventually got a site for the night.

Coffs Harbour:

Still being school holidays, Coffs Harbour was packed and we were lucky to get a site for the night. Not really that much to interest us there, so we only stayed two nights.

 

Dorrigo:

Decided we'd head inland for a change of scenery and a break from the crowds, so headed for "The Waterfall Way". The country side soon changed and the rolling green valleys were very picturesque, when we suddenly hit the Dividing Mountain Range and the steep climb up 762 metres to Dorrigo. Halfway up, notice the temperature gauge starting to climb a bit as it's really steep and seemed to go on forever. Gotta find somewhere to stop and give Tinkerbelle a rest and some time to cool down, when we luckily came across a rest area, so pulled over. Lucky us, as the views were awesome and there was also the picture perfect Newell Falls to film.

Next stop at the top of the range was The Sky Walk (a wooden boardwalk) in Dorrigo National Park. The views over the mountains and valleys below are awesome and we also noticed the temperature dropping coz of the altitude.

Next stop was the quaint little retro town of Dorrigo. It's one of those places where you feel so welcome and at home that you could easily be tempted to stay forever. The local cafe boasted "The World's Smallest Motor Bike Museum" and there's also lots of art and craft shops worth visiting. Also at Dorrigo are the Dangar Falls. What a pleasant stop this was.

Continuing along the Waterfall Way, we stopped at Ebor Falls to film both the Upper and Lower Falls. As there was plenty of water flowing, both falls are worth stopping for. Next stop was Wollomombi Gorge. There was no water flowing but the views down through the gorge were awesome.

 

Tamworth:

The annual Tamworth Country and Music Festival and The Golden Guitar Awards were on and we knew everything would be booked out so decided to look for a site outside of town and glad we did. Found a nice quiet little park at Bendemeer, about 25 minutes north of Tamworth. It was noticably cooler here and for the first time since can't remember when, we both decided to wear jeans and I even put on some shoes and socks ready to head of to Tamworth. Although we saw all the buskers strewn all the way down Pearl Street, we couldn't get into any of the shows to see the legends of Australian country music.There was one particular busker who was the best Roy Orbison sound alike we've ever heard, absolutely awesome and could have listened to him all day. Also caught up with Monte'Dwyer again (see article 37-Cairns) which was sort of wierd, as it's the third time our paths have crossed over the past few months.

 

Hunter Valley:

On the way down to the Hunter Valley, we decided to stop at Lake Glenbawn, which is reputedly The best inland fishing spot in NSW, so gotta give a go. As it's Australia Day long weekend, the place was absolutely packed with tents and caravans packed into every available spot around the lake. Although we got a camp site further away, we couldn't get anywhere near the water to toss a line in unless we actually walked into some else's camp, bugger. As you can see from the photo, they were all camped a couple of metres from the water's edge.

That's life, so onto Cessnock so that we can explore The Hunter Valley, the premium wine growing region of NSW. Must admit, it does make Margaret River in WA look small, but it doesn't have the atmosphere. There are 102 wineries listed in the tourist booklet and goodness knows how many other smaller ones there are. We only visited a few coz there's just too many to even contemplate doing unless you're a real wine fanatic and have lots of time. Well worth the visit though as it's a beautiful place.

 

Life On The Road:

First time Tinkerbelle has shown any sign of weakness, mind you, it was a long, very steep haul up that mountain (762 metres high) and our little 3litre turbo diesel is hauling around 5 tonne. We let it cool down for about 20 minutes while we were filming and she was ready to go again and no problem since. It didn't actually boil over or anything like that, but the temperature guage did rise from normal to three quarters.

It's been good to get out of the rat race of the school holidays and big tourist seaside towns and into the more sedate countryside, which is more our style.
Oh no, just realised we're heading into Sydney next and there's a heatwave on there at the moment with temperatures of 44 degrees and on top of that, it"s Australia's largest city with traffic to match.
 
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