No Camera!

5 July 2013

You know that saying up a creek without a paddle?  Well, I'm up a beautiful beach without a camera.  Camera has totally died, and I can't share photos with you all.  And as an artist and art educator, somehow a blog without photos just is boring.

So - the quick summary is that we spent one night just south of Port Macquarie at Lighthouse Beach, at a lovely holiday park full of friendly permanent residents, as well as a resident lop-eared black rabbit, and a koala high in a tree.

We headed north and spent one night just north of Coffs Harbour, at Moonee Beach - again, a nice holiday park with campers, residents, and a gorgeous view of a river full of sand bars feeding into the ocean, complete with the roar of waves all night.  Beautiful views as we drove along the coast, blue blue skies, and the weather is warming up as we head north.

Tonight, we're in Brunswick Head - we tried a campground in Byron Bay but it was packed with families, and the remaining campsites were far from the amenities - it's hard enough to make those middle-of-the-night runs to the bathroom without having to go some 100 feet in the dark, and down (and back up) a steep hill.  Just wasn't going to work for the rolling luggagers.  Maybe in our backpacker days, but not now.  So we headed north just a bit more, to Brunswick Head, and found this spot - we're backed into an isolated site opposite the amenities at this end of the camp - in back of our camper is the estuary and marina, and in the distance we can hear the constant roar of waves on the beach.  We probably will stay here a few days, to explore and relax and unwind.  Monday will be a long, 200 km drive to Brisbane, where we'll spend another few days to deal with things like getting my camera fixed, and such.  

That's about it.  No major excitement, just enjoying the small towns of east coast Australia, along with the quirky sense of humor that has developed in this country.  An example:

The National Parks Service has published a series of brochures on living with some of the animals of Australia: the dingoes, emus, kangaroos, etc.  Our personal favorite is Living With Magpies and it discusses how magpies sometimes dive bomb people, especially men.  It continues, "Try to look the magpie directly in the eye to discourage it from swooping down over your head.  It may not work, but at least you will see the bird coming at you."

This is in a published document!  From a department of the government!

We fell over laughing!

Anyway, that's life in Australia.  And our take on it.  And, I'm sorry, but I can't capture the beauty of this part of the world to show you, so please take a moment to do a google image search of any of those places, and you'll see the rich dense green forests, golden beaches, white crashing waves, and turquoise blue waters.  Really, we come around a corner on the highway and there will be an amazing panorama spread out it front of us.  Beautiful.

People assure us the best is yet to come!