Just as we were going to bed last night, the rain started and was very heavy during the night. And just yesterday I was saying how we had had such lovely weather. I should have kept quiet.
Allyson and Ian left South West Rocks on Saturday, heading for Port Stephens. We had really enjoyed the time they were here and we will do it again. We have tentative plans to meet in Pambula on the south coast of New South Wales next year.
After they left we decided to drive to Hat Head, where there is a National Park. It was still raining but not as heavy as during the night. Hopefully it will clear. We had tried to get to Hat Head the day we went to Kempsey but the bridge over the river to get there was closed for road works. The vegetation in the area is quite stunted and scrubby, and it wasn't very appealing. If we had the choice of going to Hat Head or to Crescent Head, a bit further south, we would go to Crescent Head. Hat Head has quite a big caravan park, which we walked through. This took us to a lovely timber walk bridge which crossed the river to the Korogoro Peninsula. There were some nice views from there but we didn't see any whales. Apparently Hat Head is a good place to view the whales from.
We got back to the van in time for lunch. I went in to open the windows and found some water on the inside of Bruce's window. I checked his bedding and mattress and it was all wet. And we thought the leak was fixed! We spent a long time checking it all out and it doesn't appear to be as bad as the last one we had, but still bad enough. We had a mess in the van for the rest of the afternoon. We had the mattress up on its side drying it out, bedding over my bed as we tried to dry that. There was still the odd shower around so we weren't game to put it outside. It is so frustrating. We will have to call Coromal on Monday. We think we will come home a day early. That will enable us to empty the van Thursday afternoon and take it in to them on Friday. They can have it for the week and Bruce will pick it up the following Friday.
Sunday morning we left South West Rocks for Yamba. It looks like the rain has gone and we had a beautiful sunny day. We called in to check a couple of the free camping spots out on the way past. We haven't been able to do any free camping this trip as we are not set up for it yet. We need to get solar panels, another battery and a pure sine inverter for Bruce's sleep machine but we hope to have all that by the time we head off on our next big trip next year.
We are staying at Yamba Waters Caravan Park. It is a really big caravan park and there are lots of permanent residents living here in their prefab homes. There are also a lot of Victorians here, escaping the Victorian winter. Also, Yamba is an area that draws people who want to retire somewhere else, other than where they were. It is a lovely area, on the Clarence River, with fishing for those who are interested in that. The caravan park is right on a lagoon which has fishing as well. I went for a walk around the park, which took about 20 minutes. I spoke to an elderly guy near us. He showed me a rug crocheted by his daughter which was lovely and very much like one Bruce's Mum, Glor, crocheted for us. I also noticed a sign on another permanent's cottage advising that she runs a craft group and to drop in for a chat.
We had a cooler night last night, dropping down to under 10 deg. Our heater came out again, and the layers went on, but it was okay. We were pleased we weren't in Katoomba. We spoke to a lady as we were setting up and she said she had just spoken to her sister in Katoomba and that it was snowing then.
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