Tweed Heads NSW September 9-13 2016

Tweed Heads NSW  September 9-13 2016

This has to be the worst trip in Australia - Tewantin to Tweed Heads, 245km of high speed, 3/4/5/6 lane highway mayhem - and may the devil have mercy on your soul. It’s just full on, from the moment you hit the Bruce at Cooroy to the moment you pull off the Pacific at Tweed Heads, it’s just go, go go. Mind you ,we nearly came undone when we stopped at some totally forgettable roadhouse for some nerve calming medicine. Picture this, you take the exit, go down the off ramp and into a big roundabout. You take the first exist, basically doubling back along the raceway to to the Golden Arches, which turns out to be a whole bunch of little outlets behind the servo. Having regained our composure with the aid of coffee and sticky buns, we headed out again, back down to the roundabout and wait to go straight across, blinker on ready to be taking the second exit. First you have to gun it to get into the gap, and then you back right off for the semi that comes out in right in front of you and is going straight across, almost predicable behaviour, but nothing prepared me for the stupid sheila in the tiny white buzz box that decided to drive around the inside of me and then right across in front  of us as I was exiting. Who said caravan brakes don't work?

We come to the area for two reasons, one, to go and see the Great Australian Outback Spectacular and the other to see our old mate Reg Vine. Both engagements completed on consecutive nights and very pleasantly too. Judy finally found a place for a haircut, and I went and chilled out with a spa and massage. Nice

We wandered about the area bit but its not what I want to talk about this time out, we've done it all before in these pages, probably more than once.

Let's talk about our choice of caravan park, just for fun. The van park is a new one for us: we have abandoned the council run Ben Boyd for the Big 4, just for a change and mostly based on rave reports from others we have met in various caravan parks further afield. Certainly, on the approach it bodes well, get this for a notice at the entrance:

Big4 Tweed Billabong, Tweed Heads NSW

'Best of the best' eh? We'll see.

I have to say that the entrance is pretty impressive, the paint not quite dry on the reno as we pull in.

Big4 Tweed Billabong, Tweed Heads NSW

Our site is an Ensuite and is OK I guess, as good as any and at least its on the right (left actually) side of the van.

Big4 Tweed Billabong, Tweed Heads NSW

There are 2 pools, side by side. One pool is tiny and infested with children, and in my opinion about 5 degrees too hot; they were quite proud to announce that it was 31C. It has a water slide into it and that end is 1.89m deep, the other is 1m deep and the whole thing is about 5 m long. There is a second pool right next to it - unheated and frigid, nominally 20C, and not to mention just 1.2m depth maximum.

Two pools, both unusable. Big4 Tweed Billabong, Tweed Heads NSW

The hot...

... and the cold.

They also have this large billabong, fed from the river. It has two large floating trampolines in the middle and was just fantastic to swim in, just a bit cool but not freezing. And full of fish. I tried out both of the pontoons, like floating trampolines and I was amazed at just how difficult it was to gain any sort of control balance wise, oh well, easy enough just to fall into the drink!

The billabong... note the large green fence behind. Big4 Tweed Billabong, Tweed Heads NSW

On the edge of the billabong is probably the best ever camp kitchen, it really is quite over the top; you could close the end in and live in it!

Camp Kitchen. Big4 Tweed Billabong, Tweed Heads NSW

Camp kitchen. Big4 Tweed Billabong, Tweed Heads NSW

Camp kitchen. Big4 Tweed Billabong, Tweed Heads NSW

... and just outside is a vegetable and salad garden, just help yourself, so we did, to some nice fresh lettuce

The whole place is set up to cater for families, so in summer and the school holidays it would be manic. To help cater for the children are two playgrounds, a toddler playground, a jumping pillow...

Big4 Tweed Billabong, Tweed Heads NSW

... and what is shaping up to be a cracker of a water park. Its just brand new and is only the first half, but it has a huge bucket spillage thing, modelled on the nearby Fingal head, and a mountain with 4 (yes four) waterslides.

Water park. Big4 Tweed Billabong, Tweed Heads NSW

Fingal Head waterpark. Big4 Tweed Billabong, Tweed Heads NSW

Big4 Tweed Billabong, Tweed Heads NSW

Toddlers wet area. Big4 Tweed Billabong, Tweed Heads NSW 

Big4 Tweed Billabong, Tweed Heads NSW

But, and this is a killer for us, right behind the billabong (look for the big green fence) is the M1 superhighway that has traffic 24 hours a day. It's not a loud noise as such, just a constant high level rumbling that just goes incessantly. One of those noises that gets to you if you start to focus on it.

And then there are the planes. Coolangatta airport is about 5km up the road, in fact we are directly under the flight path. Coolangatta? A country town? Not on your life, they have about six commercial jets every hour, usually spaced about 2 minutes apart, and one or two at the half hour, just to be sure. They start at 6AM, as do the children in the next van, and go right through the daytime until 1030pm. For the first two days they were taking off right over us, and you simply cant talk while they are going over. We had some respite the next day as they were coming into land and not quite as noisy.

Only one of too many right overhead. Big4 Tweed Billabong, Tweed Heads NSW

But after 3 days we had had enough and made arrangements to leave the park and move to Nambucca Heads.