Urunga NSW, July 2nd 2026

Urunga NSW, July 2nd 2026

Had a bit of a wander around day, mostly via the old Pacific Highway, now referred to as the A1 or Giinagay Way as parts of it are now known. Just driving on it as it twists and turns and goes in and out of every coastal town, not to mention radar speed traps everywhere, brings back a lot of memories. It was bypassed by the M1 back in 2016, but still, I can remember driving it many times: that slow crawl as you wend your way toward the days goal. One truck, one snail, or one of the inevitable and interminable road works and you are reduced to a crawl. It was truly horrible. Not as horrible as the Bruce Highway in Queensland, but up in the top 3.

We detoured off it to start with, turning down Rodeo Drive to Bowraville, and to be frank and with no disrespect to anyone who lives there, we drove through, turned around and drove right back out. The one thing most notable is that there isn't one upgraded / refurbished / renovated building facing the main street, which is kind of quaint but kind of sad as well, especially as a lot of what was there was closed permanently.

Went to Macksville looking for coffee but found a Department Store which required investigation, and then on to Scotts Head. We had lunch there, nice hamburger and chips washed down with passable coffee. I took a snap of the mural on the toilet as the most exciting thing I could find. It wasn't a great beach day but there were nippers out paddling about and learning how to be the next-gen lifesavers. Good on them!

Mural on public toilet block. Scotts Head NSW, 2026

Continued our drive by of Grassy Head and Stuarts Point before deciding that Urunga was worth a visit. Uranga is of course 50km in the other direction, but given the day, we may as well be doing that as anything, and besides they have a lovely old one kilometre long wooden boardwalk from the van park, over the mangrove flats and out to the ocean beach.

Or at least they did have. We had wondered how the old wooden one was holding up and the answer was that 12 months ago they ripped it out and replaced it with a really nice metal and plastic one, two metres wide and even extends down the south arm of the Bellinger River / mud flats to the wetlands sanctuary. Only gets about half the way to the beach at the moment, but they are still working on it and what they have built so far is pretty special. Well done them.

Urunga Boardwalk. Urunga NSW, 2026

Urunga Boardwalk. Urunga NSW, 2026

For your edification and just a bit of fun, here is a bad photo of the sign that used to be there, telling us all about the history. I assume they are now rewriting history, as they can and do.

Sign, Urunga boardwalk. Urunga NSW 2016

Nambucca Heads NSW, July 1st 2026

Nambucca Heads NSW, July 1st 2026

Ten years have slipped by since we were here last, and the time before that was 16 years ago. 

Nambucca heads is one of 'those' places people seem to rave about, and certainly the river mouth and heads area is very pleasant, but we haven't found anything else yet to rabbit on about. We went looking for the famous beaches and only found one: Shelly Beach (is there one in every coastal town?) which is just over the hill from the van park. There are others but we couldn't get to them due to the housing and the terrain, which is very steep everywhere. We found a carpark at what I think was Main Beach due to its having the Nambucca Heads Surf Lifesaving Club at one end, but the actual beach seemed to be around the headland. Odd.

We are staying in the same park as the last couple of times. It was called the White Albatross back then but is now an Ingenia Park. It's quite large and wraps around a lagoon and fronts onto the breakwater / boardwalk. The van park is quite pleasant, neat, tidy and at this time of the year, quiet.

The breakwater has a concrete path and on the seaward side, large boulders and concrete blocks pile up and it forms one arm of the 'V Wall'. These have become a magnet for people to paint the names of family and loved ones on. 

V Wall breakwater. Nambucca Heads 2026

The sun was just struggling up when I got to the end of the breakwater, and I couldn't help but take a snap of it coming up over the headland and Wellington Rocks.

Sunrise. Wellington Rocks. Nambucca Heads 2026

For something a bit quirky, up in town at the bus stop, there is a mural made of shells and tiles and the like. Here's one of its objects, just for fun.

Octopus mural. Nambucca Heads, NSW 2026

Karuah NSW June 29 2026

 Karuah NSW June 29 2026

What a great idea; leaving from Mittagong rather than Canberra. Once-upon-a-time it would have been no problem to do the entire trip in one go, but now it's just a whole lot easier and less stressful to do the two-hop trip.

We did the 300km in 3 hours and 15 minutes, so a pretty good trip really, Who knows how much the M7 , the K2 and the tunnel cost, our tag never uttered a sound!

Karuah is lovely, right on the waters of Port Stephens without the people and 40 kph signs, well, almost without people, there are new housing estates popping up all over the place, as there is everywhere in Australia. The Caravan Park is always pleasant, well maybe with the exception of the year it was a quagmire, and you always must take the obligatory stroll out along the wonkiest jetty is Australia.

We were in earlier than expected so we went for a cruise up the road to the Tea Gardens and Hawkes Nest. Last time we were in Tea Garden was in 1979 with my brother Paul and his family. We were training for the Birdman rally to be held in Sydney later that year. Unfortunately, our #1 daughter, who was only a few months old at the time, decided that she did not like camping, and so in the middle if the night we packed up and returned to our home in Sydney. Ah, those were the days.

There's not a lot to say about Karuah, especially since the highway bypassed it in 2004 and it became the proverbial 'sleepy hollow'. There are a few shops in town on what was once the Pacific Highway, nothing much seems to have changed in the years we have been coming here on our annual migrations. 

Anyhow, there was one place that has some printed images out front on its little picket fence, and rather than bore you with my snaps, I took a picture of one of them. I refer to them as 'found' images. It’s a lovely photo of the bridge when the then highway used to run over it, and I know I couldn’t do better so here it is:

 

Old Pacific Highway bridge at Karuah NSW, bypassed 2004

Mittagong NSW June 29 2026

 Mittagong NSW June 29 2026

Our first trip out for two years, we decided to only go as far as Mittagong on the first day, rather than driving all the way to Karuah. 

Cold and raining on and off, we took ourselves out to the "big shops", and found ourselves some lunch in the mall. After we cruised down to Bowral for a bit of a poke around some "antique" shops, shoe shops, second-hand shops... Talking of second-hand shops, the prices in Vinneys are in line with everything else in Bowral - out of this world. 

Found some lookouts that we just had to drive up to, but it's all so overgrown you can't see anything!

Mittagong Caravan Park brings back one very very old memory for me. Back when I was 13 -14, we camped there for a night or two. 'We' was mum, dad and at least my younger sister. Maybe my older sister and brother as well but can't be sure. 'Camping' was a funny little home-built trailer that looked like a small caravan. In the front was storage for the '3 x 3' tent and the stretchers, the back had a lift up section that revealed a kitchen. The tent went up around the 'kitchen' and that was the camp. What makes this memory so special to me is that I had a football with the Reg Gasnier logo on it. Reg Gasnier was a Rugby League player and the closest thing I ever had to having a sporting hero. I fancied myself as a goal kicker and spent a few hours on the football field next to the van pack trying to kick goals... One of my very few and very brief encounters with sport. We are basically incompatible!

Anyhow, took a snap of the goal posts some 64 years on, just for the fun of it.

Football filed Mittagong NSW

Karuah NSW September 1st 2024

 Karuah NSW September 1st 2024

Long day on the road gets us into Karuah, the only place we have ever found to stay at night, ready for a run down through Newcastle and Sydney and then - Home.

We got a bit of a surprise though, the service station is closed for renovations. Good job we are in the Beemer and not the Ford, because we had plenty in reserve. We went and found some 10km back ups the road though, just be sure.

The best place in Karuah is the jetty, with its attendant wonky old boardwalk. 

Karuah NSW

Karuah NSW

Karuah NSW

Karuah NSW

Yamba NSW August 27th 2024

Yamba NSW August 27th 2024

Easy run down to Yamba. Found our spot in the park and went up to town for lunch. Had a bit of a wander around to reacquaint ourselves with Yamba and the bits and pieces around the place.

Angourie Back Beach, Angourie NSW

Yamba main beach and pool, Yamba NSW

Fog rising over Yamba Marina, Yamba NSW

Did some stuff: ‘History’ Ferry Cruise - 4 hours of nothing, it would have been boring of you could have heard the commentary. Took 2 hours to cover about 5 nautical miles from the park to the highway bridge. And just a complete rip-off. You can't bring food or drink on board, but they will gladly sell you a sandwich in a plastic for $10 and a can of drink for five. Parkrun - great little run along the river front, pretty hot and humid though. Angourie Back Beach my favourite - 630 am deserted, heaven on earth, a run in the car out to Lawrence and Bushgrove, touched Grafton and came car through Maclean.

I wanted to go to Bushgrove mostly because it featured in a great pamphlet thing  marine chart we picked up which was about cruising on the Clarence River. It waxed lyrical about the wonder of having lunch on the deck overlooking the broad expanse of the river etc etc. The pub itself, including the covered patch of dirt on the river bank were ok, but far from the rhetoric of the glossy brochure. We did get to cross the river though, twice, on a vehicular ferry, which is a bit quaint these days.

Vehicular Ferry, Lawrence, Clarence River, NSW

Lunchtime viewing area, Bushgrove Hotel, NSW

The view from the said viewing platform 

Actually a highlight was lunch at Maclean where we ‘discovered’ the Botero Coffee Roasters and Cafe. Exellenent lunch, great coffee

Botero Roastery, Maclean NSW

The Caravan park was ‘nice’, until the 10,000 young persons with all their children and all their toys turned up n Friday. You can hear the kiddies starting to mumble and grumble from six am, then at 7 am sharp they throw all the van and cabin doors open and the kiddies erupt out onto their scooters and bikes, yelling and screaming at each other and moaning about this and that... and it doesn’t stop until 7 at night when thankfully they all go to sleep. 

And then there was the pool or pools, only one heated is the swim-up bar, and you can imagine what that was like! But the others, including the water play areas are decidedly cool. The main pool is really nice, just cold. Not frigid, just not a pleasant place to get in and splash around. Good for lap swimming though if you were brave enough to tough it out. One one or two brave souls, including me, used it as our own private pool all week... until Saturday. The temperature soared to 35° by 9 o’clock and a hot sweltering wind picked up. All of a sudden the “freezing” pool was the place to be! And then the power went off. Not just the van park, but all of Yamba. Came back on about three o’clock, so all the air-conditions could be brought back on-line.

Judy did some fishing from the end of the van park pier and caught all kinds of baby fish, biggest one was a 30cm flathead. All consigned back to their watery habitat for next year.

We will go back, we’ll just make sure it’s not on the weekend, especially a Fathers’ day one or the like.

Tweed Heads NSW August 23rd 2024

 Tweed Heads NSW August 23rd 2024

Koala. Kirra Beach Qld

Another 4 1/2 hours of highway hell. Tewantin to Tweed Heads, its just full-on motorised mayhem. Started badly when we very, very, nearly wiped out a bikie, who thought it was smart to swoop past us on the left while I was in the middle of getting back n that same lane after an overtaking move. He must have been doing 130 at least. Just how he didn’t hit us I really don't know. I swerved a bit, he severed a lot. Just plain good luck that I saw him in the side mirror in what would have been the last split second of his life.

One always expects the Bruce or whatever it is, “A1” I think is its proper name, to be busy with its four lanes but this year it has been taken to new heights of traffic all hell-bent on being somewhere else as fast as possible. That’s not so bad, I can handle that, but then they closed two lanes about halfway down to put in more lanes and so we were reduced to a crawl for half an hour or so before finally being freed of it at the NSW border. Northbound was just as bad. And the locals just accept it as the normal way to travel. Oddly, looking back through my blog and travel notes, I say the same thing every year. I think this may be our last, Id rather drive a few hundred kilometres further right out around the back of Brisbane than do this again.

anyhow, this year we are back at what used to called the Ben Boyd van park, owned an operated by the local council. Haven’t been here for 9 years as it turns out. I don't remember the old highway outside the fence being quite this noisey but it will have to do for this year.