April 29 - May 2 The Rest of Coffs

Moonee Creek Beach

So over the next days we had some rain through to torrential and continuous downpours with added thunderstorms and strong winds – delightful.  One moderate rainy day we did a tour of the northern beaches and at one it even stopped raining giving us enough time for an explore.  We were rewarded with the best cache of river eroded skipping stones ever.  AWESOME!

Coffs Harbour Butterfly House

We also went to the Coffs Harbour Butterfly House (one of only 3 in Australia) during a couple of sensational thunderstorms.  The storms really encouraged us to take our time watching and learning more about butterflies than, well ever.  The combination of going on a weekday and the rain meant that there were not many people there.  The boys had one of the butterfly attendants to answer all their questions.  She was an excellent source of information and showed the boys a range of chrysalises (butterflies have chrysalis, moths cocoons) and explained the full life cycle of butterflies.  We were able to take some really good pictures, have our sandwiches and learn about a range of other insects there as well, all while staying dry through some amazing storms and deluging rains.

Good thing the boys have been watching plenty of David Attenborough.

Yep this butterfly is actually laying its eggs.

 

 Storms, rain, wind and the big wet

This is the path we took to Muttonbird Island only a couple of days earlier

And the storms – well we saw more rain that you get for half a year or more in Canberra.  We couldn’t get great pictures as we didn’t want to ruin our cameras.  The day after the storms we emerged and walked along the local beaches and look outs.  The waves were crashing over the breakwater we had walked over to Muttonbird Island, the normally quiet creeks around Coffs were torrents, the beaches covered in sticks and logs, and the sea water was a delightful shade of, well, mud.

Whilst we had found Coffs a bit difficult in the wet (we had a mound of wet towels and clothes ready for a good wash and dry), we had total sympathy for the intrepid athletes who had to compete in the world touch football cup through all those deluges.  We tried to look at a couple of the matches from the road – we couldn’t see them even though they were only 20 or 30 metres away.  It was such a shame for Coffs to have this world class sporting event in probably their worst weather of the year.

April 28 Talk about views – Muttonbird Island has them in droves

After Dorrigo we were all a bit tired so had a quiet morning, kids playing in the park, David and I doing van stuff.  After this we went for a lovely lunch of fish and chips at the harbour marina (we have found ourselves sampling fish and chip meals in a variety of coastal locations and plan to continue to do so).  

After our lunch we continued walking down the marina and to the island at the end of the breakwater which we discovered was called Muttonbird Island. Muttonbird Island has a short but steep walk which delivers the most beautiful 360 degree views of Coffs Harbour. The island is a protected Nature Reserve and home to thousands of wedge-tailed shearwaters, also known as muttonbirds, it is also a significant site to the local Gumbaynggirr Aboriginal people.  The island’s plant cover hides thousands of burrows.  We didn’t see any birds, but we thoroughly enjoyed the walk (as did our cardiovascular systems) and the signs at the start of the walkway at the bottom of the island and along the path, explaining the lifecycle and habits of the shearwaters.

 

At the end of the walkway is a viewing platform, providing great views of the waves crashing onto the rocks and of the Solitary Island.  The boys loved watching the waves crashing onto the rocks and we spent some time at this platform just waiting for ‘one more big one Mum’.

Later that afternoon when we were shopping we had our first deluge.  Unfortunately, between us David and I had managed to leave one of our skylights open (a mistake we very much hope never to make again – although at least our floors got a good clean).  Oh well – still very much learning about caravanning as we go.  We are sure this will not be last time we either make a mistake or need to learn a new lesson about caravanning around Australia.

April 27 - Dorrigo National Park

The original question asked by our Mr C was can we go to Gondwana on our trip (after all we had learnt so much about Gondwana at the Age of Fishes Museum), its on the map he said.  And he was right.  Marked on our map was not a rainforest but a band of rainforest national parks which form the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area.  This area starts just north of Port Macquarie and extends into southern Queensland.  Our walk in Mt Yarrahapinni was through one of these remnants of Gondwana – but at the back of Coffs Harbour is Dorrigo National Park which is a truly amazing area and something I wanted very much to show the kids.  The drive out to the national park is incredibly scenic going through the lovely township of Bellingen and driving along the Bellinger river before climbing up through the national park with creeks turning to waterfalls on the side of the road. 

Dorrigo National Park is well served by a fantastic rainforest centre and skywalk.  The skywalk provides the most amazing views of the rainforest canopy and down to the coast.  It also had our first fotopost which Mr C was very keen to take advantage of and take a family portrait.

There is then a walking track which starts from the centre and loops through this tall, lush subtropical rainforest.  We were warned that parts of this track were steep so after a short walk near the centre we drove further up to a picnic area and started our walk there.  This was a popular centre and walking track – there was a large size (noisy) school group and the range of different languages present showed how much of an attraction this area is.  Our walk took us down a steep and winding walking track through the depths of the rainforest, with its 600 year old trees, amazing habitat of epiphytes and fungi to the cascading Crystal Shower Falls. 

These falls were totally amazing – David and I have both seen fantastic waterfalls before, we have deliberately walked to falls after flooding rains.  These falls are beautiful in and of themselves, but what makes them so special, you can walk behind them.  And when you do this is what you see.

 

Of course what goes down must come up – so after a very aerobic hike back up to our car we were rewarded with another lookout with more amazing views.

We then drove to the also lovely Dangar Falls but didn’t do the full walk as time was working against us now.  We drove back to Coffs Harbour via a different and unsealed road – which was another lovely, scenic drive (albeit the very, very slow cattle truck we were behind for a very, very long time was a tad annoying).  When our boys are older and can do some longer walks I would love to come back and tackle some of the longer tracks.  Dorrigo is a truly special place which we would love to explore more some day.