2002-04-11

Wednesaday morning and it is overcast. The storm did not come here, though it did rain, but I was safe and cosy in my little coocoon Stripey. But today is the day I leave something I'm a bit sad about since Brooms Head is so fucking lovely. Hey! I just saw my dog-mate out for a morning walk. But he must have deemed the swell a bit scary to swim in, and headed off up the hill.

Its now the evening and I am sitting in a caravan high on the headlands at Nambucca Heads - the very same caravan I stayed in on my trek last year. Its pretty fucking dingy though - the frige is just there, the stove top is kinda melted and if I touch the curtains they will fall down. There is a shower on board the caravan, but as if I'm going to use it - dark, small, sunken and plastic. Looks like a cupboard if you don't know what is in there. And the gravel that covers the roads is the most foot unfriendly I have ever encountered - sharp, little rocks. But the beach is just below, just how I like it!

After leaving Brooms, I went to Maclean and had a little breakfast and went to the op shops, buying a pink blanket and some vinyl offcuts for Dame. After that I went to Dame's Nan's house on the hill for a cuppa. Then I left to go down the western side of the river, through Lawrence and onto Grafton. The area is beautiful and green due to the sugar cane and at times, it rises high above you on both sides of the narrow road like giant grass. Soon it came time to cross the river and up here, they can't be building bridges everytime there is a river crossing required, since the Clarence has so many arms and islands. No they have ferrys, cool modern ones that work by dragging themselves across on big steel cables, holding up to 8 or so cars. Stripey goes to sea! I felt pretty funny and it was beautiful in the middle of the wide river, blue sky, blue river, green sugar cane. And it was free and I wondered who owned the whole thing. One of the routes I took was notated as 'Tourist Drive 22". On road signs there is ocassionally a brown icon with "Tourist Drive" written on it and the route number. Mostly they are off the main highway and alternate routes between places and much nicer to drive along. When I get home I want to look at getting a map with all the tourist drives on it and going on some of them as the landscape is more interesting that matching service stations on both sides of the freeway and some of the towns are tiny and almost undiscovered.

Motoring about, i blared my Hissyfits/Mates of State tape singing mercilessly.

Driving on through Lawrence, the road hugged the river, but then took a fork, and in the words of old mate poet, Robert Frost, I took 'the road less travelled'. The narrow road went further along the river, with homes popping out of the cane fields, right next to the road. There are some beautiful old places in this area, one of the first settled on the north coast - I could live up here. Many houses verge on disrepair, but could be saved - I guess farmers just done have the time or money to keep their houses maintained. I really want to buy one on a few acres...I even took the trouble to look in many realestate agents windows once I got to Grafton. Who knows?

Grafton is a strange, large, country town; not a place I would like to live. Its quite large and a bit too preoccupied with Jacaranda Festivals. But great architecture and op shops, which is the main reason I stopped - to op shop. And i scored mightily in the three good stores in town: WWF jigsaw puzzles for Glenny and JF, some weird ass scouting manuals with great pictures, some buttons for Dame, Guns N Roses biography, Ice T biography, brown glitter leg warmers, a three book dictionary encyclopedia full of the small line drawings I love for my zinery and a very 80s pink hairdryer key ring.

Back on the Pacific Highway, I headed for Coffs Harbour, passing through

woolgoolga, where I had spent many a childhood holiday with relatives. One year, I remember, Dad booked the forestry cabin that was on the headland of one of the beaches, which was available for hire by Forestry employees. It was pretty rough, but had power and stuff. It was all about the location really and you couldn't beat its total ocean views and bush backing (it was on the edge of a state forest). I am doubtful it would have survived Woolgoolga's quick progress. When I used to go there, the town was wholly on the Eastern side of the Pacific, between the highway and and beach. These days there is house on the western side in equal numbers to the town I new, and it has a big, new road house service station, to mark that it has arrived on the big road's map. Nice modern (er, ugly) motels had been built along the highway strip, and just over the hill, two police sat with a radar. Flashing them a big smile I silently wished them luck - I hate it when people speed.

Onto Coffs Harbour, where I also spent holidays when my father lived there for short time - I most remember shopping at Park Beach Plaza, reading Smash Hits and listening to Pseudo Echo. But Coffs was nice enough. Now it is all pastel, duplex living with wide, four lane roads snailing through it - a banner announced that the Vans Warped Tour would roll in to town this weekend. It took ages to get through this throbbing touristopolis, and as I went through, I noticed the dingy housing commission areas that used to sit above Park Beach Plaza were gone, replaced by nicer, more profitable townhouses. And that was the taste Coffs left in my mouth. Gah...