TOD Tour, Day 32 - Ashby to Yamba

If yesterday's hop had been short, today's was hardly a warm up for the engine.

We moved from Squeaky Gate mid morning after long conversations with our hosts and drove to Yamba, by leaving Ashby and crossing Warregah and Chatsworth Islands and then when back on the Pacific Highway for a few kilometres to cross the Clarence and turn towards Yamba. It was less than thirty kms.

Arriving in Yamba just before lunch, we first went Lattitude 29, one of our three favourite cafes - each in the spotlight for different reasons - for a mocha and hot chocolate. Pure indulgence!

Lunch was spent in the Avan, parked beside Pippi Beach and watch parasurfers get airborne in the fresh south easterly wind.

Screen shot from my Stargazer App

We booked in to our accommodation - Yamba Waters Caravan Park - mid afternoon and then went back into town to let the day dissipate around us over a a few red wines at Pippis Cafe (another of those favourite three). Here we observed Venus in the fading sky and a quick check of my Stargazer app showed a rather rare alignment of celestial bodies.

The traditional first evening at Yamba meal of fish and chips was obtained from Wattos. They now serve a gluten-free fish and chips and we attended this with a garden salad.

TV ... bed.

Yamba 2014 - Day 11

It was a lazy day.

Slept in until 9:30am ... who does that?

Made it to Latitude 29 for a late morning tea of chocolate dripping inside and outside her hot chocolate and my mocha. I exchanged pleasantries with our barrister while Sue went instead for lewd and lascivious.

Main Beach and a few minutes with family members before being talking into a hot chocolate and mocha at Pippis Cafe. More fun and games and stories. The family stories really are the best.

Back on our own again and before long we were down into the town again and trying the BeachWood Cafe for the first time. Given the reputation Sevtap Yuce (SBS TV and books) has established for lovely fresh flavours and a cuisine influenced by her background but grounded in her environment, I expected a lot of the place. Certainly her personal welcoming was a strong feature of our dining experience but call me old fashioned or certainly lacking in trend but sitting on wooden boxes isn't my thing. Neither are rickety tables perched together on a crowded waking space. Some might call it atmosphere but I'd call it too small a space and placing your customers in the streetscape as a cheap alternative to providing a dining space. Granted, the food was good. My lamb koftes and their accompanying sauce were still being enjoyed as I licked them from the corners of my mouth and my companions chilli garlic prawns (local, of course) were smothered in a delightfully light dressing. Service was good, although a little hovering and in need of approval for my liking.

To cap the experience, there was not only no eftpos or card facilities but also no attempt to inform diners of the fact before ordering. The plethora of younger diners from Sydney who raved about us did their best to intimidate me into believing my hard bum and space consciousness was uncalled for. Good try but no such luck. Not for me.

Somewhat disgruntled, we paid a visit to the Story House Museum, which has been extended since our last wander through and on this occasion featured a small but fine display of aboriginal art. Its a well organised museum, with lots of photos, all well labelled and plenty of information about local history.

After gathering a few things to contribute to dinner, we went for the obligatory sunset drinks at the Pacific Hotel and met a couple from Brisbane who were just completing their first tourist day in Yamba. We only had an hour to chat but we made the most of it.

The evening was spent with Sue's sister Mandy and her husband Joel and their eight year old twins Ava and Jack. I had been enjoying conversation with the ladies but a descent into ladies handbags and Diana Ferrari shoes drove me from the table and into the arms of Joel, Jack and the football. We left at half time, but not before Joel managed a backflip into the glass-topped coffee table as Manly scored. Cuts, abrasions and a shattered coffee table top.

My mantle as the king of calamity has finally been shattered ... so to speak.

Yamba 2014 - Day 10

We both sleep well and long. It seemed warmer during the night and we have settled into the rhythm of this new life and new accommodation. Our late breakfast was taken in the sunshine.

Mid morning we drove into Yamba - Sue was unable to ride the bike with the onset of a mad swimmers head cold. Parking at Pippis Cafe, we walked out to and circumnavigated Lover's Point in delightful winter sunshine and the usual blustery breeze which seems to blow only there. There was lots to see in the colourful rock pools and yet another few examples of the teepees built from ocean debris which appear all the rage this year. One was so elaborate that it had a stone table and chairs. On Convent beach, a small crayfish lay abandoned by a retreating tide, fascinating the children who had gone their to splash and be excited by the cold water of the Pacific and the warm hearts of doting parents. The rock platform below Ritz St held more colours and critters a the tide gradually filled the cracks and crevices.

Up the ramp from Main Beach, we enjoyed at coffee at Pippis Cafe and then return to our digs and a BBQ lunch with Mandy's family.

Late into the afternoon, we returned to town for more of the chocolate decadence of Lattitude 29, before Sue went shopping and I went up the hill to the Pacific Hotel and some editing. It was the final instalment and the completion of an entry form as I submitted a play to the Playwriting Australia hoping for a place in a program to workshop it and brush it into stage quality.

Sue joined me for sunset drinks and afterward, we met the near full moon on the beach as the high tide rolled in. I had some fun with the low exposure, low light tricks photography courses had taught me, shooting the two of us in three poses in the one 30' photo. Afterwards, we dined at Sassafras on gluten free pizza.

I went home to write an application for arts funding of the Postcode Poets. Sue went home to snore.