TOD Tour, Day 30 - Minnie Water & Yuraygir NP

Our second full day near Minnie Water in Yuraygir NP was spent in perfect weather: warm, mostly clear skies and a gentle breeze blowing in from the ocean all day, the later aspect taken full advantage of by our site immediately bordering on the back of the beach.

An enjoyable synchronicity is starting to creep into days when we aren't moving on. I usually catch the sunrise, waking Sue only if it's a good one and then make myself a cuppa and settle in with a book for a couple of hours until Sue rouses from her increasingly elongated nocturnal habit. "Flight Command" by Air Commodore John Oddie is the current volume, my third book in seven days. There is evidence of space beginning to yawn in my book box.

After breakfast, I prepared photos for the blog and then we explored the walk to Rocky Point, which lies to the south between Minnie Waters and our campsite. It is a small section of the Yuraygir Coastal Walk, a four day hike of 65kms along the seaward edge of the park, which extends from Angourie (near Yamba) in the north, all the way to the southern most point of the park at Red Rock. Yesterday we sighted four walkers at the Minnie Water shop, of a slightly older vintage than our own, laden with packs and those fibreglass walking poles.

Before leaving our campsite, we both went to visit the smelly, fly-frequented, composting toilets, whose long drop had become quite truncated, judging by my knowledge of the time it takes objects to fall under the effect of gravity. Emptied and replaced, the large plastic tanks under our toilet station seem to be in year seven or eight of a three year cycle. Whilst working through the business required as quickly as possible in order to avoid flystrike, I heard a kettle whistling and thought it remarkable that someone else in the camping grounds had one like ours. We returned and a neighbour explained he had rushed to our van when the whistling of our kettle didn't cease, couldn't get into the locked caravan and so turned off the gas at the bottle rather than risk another fire. Meanwhile, another set of neighbours set out on foot to find us and had covered 2kms before turning back. After our galley fire yesterday, we seem to have made our fellow campers nervous.

Our little effort was about one 65th of that and included a detour onto a secluded, rocky beach and headland. Sooty Oyster Catchers and a lone Little Heron were working the rock pools and shallow waters for food and the four metre rock-faced cliffs weeped rivulets and miniature waterfalls where mosses eked out a difficult existence. Here the footing was sea-weathered, rounded rocks in all sizes from a fist to the annoying pebble in your boot. Shells were crushed further under our tread as we picked our way carefully over the uneven surface. Evidence of humans intruded on nature, even here: the rounded lens from reading glasses wedged firmly in a crevice; a pair of sunglasses as that big catch was landed; and the obligatory scraps, strips and bags of plastic which seem to invade all of these wild places beside the sea.

Back in the banksias and paperbarks which partitioned the track, we could hear a noisy Perron's tree frog and few others we couldn't identify by their calls. Naturally, I have a couple of apps on my phone for such occasions.

After our walk, we returned to the Minnie Water shop for hot beverages whilst I filed a few days worth of posts, uploaded photos and changed maps. I also caught up on emails and other messages which bank up when you are absent from the electronic highways and byways. Sue forced me to have hot chips again.

As I had left our lactose free milk behind before going to the shop, I drove back to camp. The lure of a mocha can do that to a man. When I got there, a third set of neighbours was peering into our van windows and quickly backed away as I drove up. Clearly making excuses for their proximity, only moments of conversation elapsed before they asked where Sue was and followed up with "and is she all right". They seemed reluctant to accept she was in good health and waiting for me at the shop, preferring to believe that I had murdered her or at least locked her in the van after some other heinous deed. Raised voices the previous evening over a matter in which Sue had broken the Geneva Convention and several other United Nations resolutions and tried to cover her misdeeds by burning the van down, had led them to suspect I was not to be trusted. I'm not sure if they were relieved or disappointed when we returned both laughing after our coffee.

Now into the early afternoon, we drove out to the other village of this area of the North Coast, Wooli. Well, not the only one, as Sandon River ten kilometres to the north over either a rough dirt track, or the more preferred route along the beach.

Many years ago, in pre-youngest child days, we had spent an Easter at Wooli, in the simple two room fibro shack owned by a cricketing mate. Our memories of days playing on the beach with our first two children, with very little money to do anything else but eat, living an idyllic existence on nothing much but goodwill and clean air, came flooding back ... as did our recollection that there wasn't much to Wooli and what there was ... well, it wouldn't take long to tell.

Nothing has changed.

We did however see those same four walkers in Wooli, hot sweaty and looking with unexpected chagrin at their backpacks which seemed to be sitting innocently on a park bench whilst their owners stood. Inappropriate priorities there, surely?

The river is very pretty.

For the second day in a row, I was barked at by a Jack Russell. Whilst the dog at Tree of Knowledge Lookout yesterday was called Jack, this one had the curious name of "You Little Bastard".

We did get to the bottom of the Tree of Knowledge - please understand, not literally, for the tree doesn't exist. It's a metaphor. The only sticking point is that none of the locals really knew what the metaphor represents,  until a long haired, stout, fat-bellied scratching local, with a good grasp of the Queen's kitchen staffs' english, assured us it was named for the group of old fishermen who gather there, on the top of the hill above the boat ramp and talk shit. Not my term. Just reporting what Sue was told.

Back at our campsite, we read for an hour until the magic time of 4pm - that's the exact time at which the sun will no longer give you cancer (reference Sue for further information) - and then went for a swim in water too shallow for sharks. As I imagine even small sharks could do me unacceptable damage, this was water we could still stand in ... and not get our knees wet.

It was substantially refreshing.

It was after this invigorating experience that I lost my sundowner virginity, when we were invited to have drinks with some neighbouring caravaners. I know how it sounds. You're thinking "he's gone over to the dark side!" It wasn't like that. These were really interesting people and we swapped stories about where we have been, our children, politics, showed them our fold up bikes and exchanged business cards and it all confirmed my worst nightmares of becoming a GN - still can't say the term - until he dropped in the conversation that he had escaped the former East Germany by jumping from a moving train in Berlin. Had I been in possession of sharper wits, his reference to celebrating when the wall came down wouldn't have made me think he was talking about an episode of The Block. Absolute show stopper!

I have to admit, I enjoyed the conversations but as yet, I'm trying to ignore the consequences of my actions.

TOD Tour, Day 29 - Minnie Water

I woke this morning from the best night's sleep of the four weeks we have spent on the road so far. We slept with all the windows open and a soft breeze from the ocean all night. Perhaps it was also because I swapped sides with Sue and let her sleep on the open side of the bed, meaning I wasn't woken every time she answered a call from nature.

The sun rose like like a reversed film of a fireball falling into the sea. It was blood red and beyond the capability of my cameras to capture with any justice.

The morning was absorbed by reading. Having finished an old Tom Kennelly book about a hijack situation on an international flight, I zoomed through a very interesting memoir which was given to me when we visited Newee Creek. Noel Robertson lives on the three acres which used to be the dairy at my father in law's first farm. It is his country retreat which he has engaged with permanently and where he wrote this frank memoir and two delightfully different books about his chooks.

It is self-published and at over two hundred pages (admittedly in a larger than usual font) there were times in the last third where it strayed from the narrative of his life and on to the lives of others but never the less, it was a well constructed and eminently readable tome. Born and raised in far North Queensland, Noel has had for himself an experience-rich life, dominated by his twenty years as cabin crew during the transition QANTAS made from turboprop to jet aircraft. It could have easily descended into a kiss and tell collection but he has chosen to tell only a few of the many stories he witnessed in the making aboard the Boeing fleet of Australia's national airline. His anecdote about Sir Robert Helpman was a hoot and his reference - incorrect in some details - to the 1975 Australian cricket team's return from England, was illuminating but not surprising.

His frankness about his own sexuality and his description of the times he lived through are as much a social history as a personal one.

I really enjoyed the read and virtually read it from cover to cover, with a break only for breakfast. I hope he enjoys my book of poetry we exchanged for it.

Nature played its part in our entertainment. A Brahminy Kite swept past, gliding on the breeze; two goannas visited our campsite and climbed nearby trees; Noisy Minors roared through at head height like reckless teenagers; and a storm approached from the south east, causing me to hurry repairs to our back window. By the time I was finished, I had made a messy but hopefully successful job of sealing seams, seals, rivets and screws. The storm went elsewhere but a few lonely stray drops called by.

When we should have been thinking about lunch, we instead took a drive into Minnie Waters villageship - an awkward term but it is definitely not a town. A community hall, a shop that does and sells everything and a Rural Fire Service shed are the only building which are not residential and the majority of the remainder are holiday homes. Surprisingly, some them are substantial in both building materials and size.

We had reasonable hot beverages - and yes, hot chips - at the shop and then drove up to the Tree of Knowledge Lookout. The tree must have just stepped out but the view was good. Phone reception in the woods here about, is pretty sketchy, so we were surprised when our phones jumped into life and even more surprised when Sue's phone rang. For the rest of the time at the lookout, I took pictures and Sue tried, with limited success, to attend to Facebook. She has moved on significantly from the days of being a Facebook doubter and these days, is in the fanatic class.

Minnie Water Back Beach

A short and unheralded drive took us down a dirt road to the top of a flight of stairs which descended onto Back Beach. Walled in by headlands at either end and large, inaccessible sand dunes behind, only the ocean has a view of the gently sloping sand. Within moments, Sue had flung her clothes onto a rock and herself into the sea. These are the moments when she is still my awesome, seventeen year old, free-spirited girlfriend, cheeky in all respects and from any angle.

I spent the late afternoon writing, whilst Sue disappeared to wander the campground for conversations. It had become cloudy and cooler but the birds still sung from trees and other more stealthy places and the ocean was still our most obvious and most noisy neighbour.