A spectacular drive up through the rainforest and over the range to get back into NSW and down to Kyogle .
We stayed for a few days at the showground , found a lookout over town and went for a drive out along the Richmond River .
The countryside is lush and green , totally unexpected for this time of year when it's normally burnt off & brown .
Another spot we hadn't been to up here is Toonumbar Dam , time to remedy that one . It's about 40klms out of town in amongst rolling hills , state forests & national park , not a large dam in the scheme of things , being narrower than most and not as long . We drove out to Bells Bay Camp Ground , which is looked after by the fishing club , they've also put in a boat ramp making it easy for us to get onto the water .
Like normal , we should have been out earlier , the temperature was getting up , but it was nice on the water .
We didn't have it all to ourselves , there was another canoe out and a couple of tinnies with fishermen trying their luck .
A couple of the biggest Sea Eagles we've seen , flew in and perched on a dead tree , so we floated over quietly to see how close we could get - about 30m before they flew over to another tree .
A bit further down was an Azure Kingfisher , beautiful !!
Here's a few more shots , no shortage of water lillies and beautiful tall straight gum trees .
Heading back to the boat ramp for a well earned swim in water that was much warmer than expected , it was still cooling us down though . After cleaning everything we went up to the campground for some lunch before driving another road back to Kyogle .
This is from the dam wall .
Leaving Kyogle , we went to Alstonville Showgrounds for 3 nights , then back to Lismore Showgrounds for another 3 nights , then 4 down on Garry's block . Whilst in Alstonville we caught up with Garry & Gail Burley who lived in Moss Vale till about 27 years ago !! They did get quite a surprise !!
Here's sunset at Alstonville .
Some small jobs taken care of on the van while we were at Lismore , and an enjoyable afternoon at Garry & Kelly's place . The drone got another fly , this is the view toward Lismore from Goonellabah .
A night in Casino to recharge things before heading south to an old school friend's place near Grafton for a few days . Another surprising evening , watching flying foxes stream out to their evening feeding grounds , there were thousands of them - see for yourself .
The next 2 days were filled with chatter , some driving around the coast and more chatter , some swimming & snorkelling , and just sitting around in rock pools keeping cool , and enjoying their company .
This is at Brooms Head .
We clambered over these rocks and found a nice pool to relax in and snorkel around .
Looking back south toward the village of Brooms Head .
This is South of Brooms Head village .
Next day we headed off early , packed lunch and headed toward Iluka . First stop was at Woody Head , north of Iluka . The strong seas recently certainly eroded the beach and surrounding dunes , unfortunately there were a lot of trees washed into the ocean and left to bleach in the sun , but that's what mother nature does for you .
Further around this bay was another beautiful beach and a great rocky point for us to swim and snorkel in . There were many fish - whiting , bream and many others , yellow & black striped , neon blue & green . There was a school of hundreds of small fish that would swim in front and around me and had me mesmerised - I swam through them and followed them around for several minutes .
There's plenty of well weathered rocks around the point , here's some of them .
After cooling down it was time for lunch , then a drive into Iluka for a milkshake , tea & coffee . Then we had a look around Iluka & Goodwood Island . The Clarence River flows out to see here between Yamba & Iluka and has been earmarked for a shipping port to be developed . The works on the Pacific Highway keep rolling along with many new sections getting opened up since we were here last .
Back home we went , after a quick shower I did some aerial shots with the drone for Deb & Jeff , then some dinner and a photo show for Deb & Jeff to see some of WA .
They even had another visitor , a leaf tailed gecko - it's about 150mm long - apologies for the photo , it was dark and I only had the phone to take it with .
That's it , up to date , here's a map link :-https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WuFUvuzyK3jOAvf9Px1qtwNq2LWS5o9O&usp=sharing
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