29th July 2026: Left Brisbane before nine and drove to Mt Coton, where we hitched up the caravan and headed for Ballina, stopping at a wayside stop south of Tweed Heads for coffee. We reached Ballina before 2pm and set up on our beachfront ensuite caravan site, such a good site that we changed the booking to 3 nights.

We  then went over to East Ballina to the golf course to book a game for the next day and then did a grocery shop at Woolworths.

I cooked us a mushroom risotto for dinner, accompanied by a green salad,

Ballina Caravan park
Beach near our caravan

Google map view of where our van is parked 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
 July 31st: Awoke to a clear sky and we set off on our Lake Eyre flight, which was actually 5 hours of flying with a stopover at Birdsville for lunch. Seeing Lake Eyre North filled with water was one thing, but travelling over the Channel country where the Diamantina River and Coopers Creek, both in flood break up into a myriad of channels such that there is water from one horizon to the other, was truly spectacular! Coopers Creek has only just reached Lake Eyre. There is only local rain causing a little bit of filling only for south Lake Eyre, but there is no water yet going through the Goyder channel connecting the two halves of the Lake.We ate at the Birdsville Hotel then went to Birddvisitors centre to learn more about the Lake Eyre Basin. On the way back we saw Goyder lagoon which was a huge area of water. We also saw the Birdsville track flooded and it was easy to see way it is closed and will be for some time. We didn’t see as many birds as I thought we might. We saw pelican...
Read more
Image
 24th June 2026: had a relaxing start to the day then decided to go on the afternoon tour of Fairview Station in a large bus-like 4 WD, led by a guy who has a good driver but didn’t seem to know a whole lot about the place. There were only 4 of us on the tour, and I volunteered to open the gates we had to go through. This involved getting out and into the vehicle without an extra stepping stool and opening a variety of fastenings on a number of gates , only one being a padlock! Fortunately I could do it! The Station is 1,000,000 acres and home to 10,000 to 20,000 cattle Brahmans and a type of Red beef breed. At each muster, the cattle are first spotted by helicopter. They are never able to round up more than 70% of the herd at one time. They don’t use cattle dogs because they bite the cattle’s leg or nibble their ear and then that particular animal can’t be sold once it has bite masks. The cattle mainly go to cattle sales in Mareeba, with a few sold locally. We didn’t see much wild...
Read more
Image
 1st July 2026: got up early to take the caravan to Northern Wheel alignment for wheel aligning! We dropped it off in an awkwardly narrow street in a premises with the narrowest of drives and fortunately the technician offered to back it for us. We then headed to COFFii nearby for great coffee and toasties. I then posted Julia and Frances’ birthday presents from the Cairns Post office and bought some barramundi and yellowfin tuna from Seafood Express in Sheridan St. my old apartment is still there somewhat tarted up! We returned to Kewarra for lunch and then picked up the van late in the afternoon, where we were told we had a leaky shock absorber and Eric recommended Cairns Autoelectrical in Stratford. We headed straight there at 4 pm and saw Sam, the boss Brett’s wife who was extremely knowledgeable and booked us in the next morning based on the Nic’s research probe findings( VeePeak OnBoardDiagnostic scanner)! We headed back to Kewarra and I cooked Barramundi( over and rice and s...
Read more