We chose a van park in South Ballina because we still have Bruce the Dog (our daughter's dog) and national parks and many other places are out of bounds.
Besides, national parks would be full and finding a good spot would be difficult.
So, on Friday arvo we headed south. Karen had an RDO and I had one lecture at unit in the morning and was able to defer my afternoon studies - nice to be so flexible. :)
We missed the worst of the traffic and arrived at the van park after less than two hours - this included the ferry ride that was necessary to get to South Ballina. Always a fun exercise.
The van park was expecting us and we had a decent sized spot available for us and set up quickly. Yep, we were enjoying a little drinkie as we watched all the other people arrive and set up.
I rigged up a bit of a run for BtD with his bed at one end of it - park rules (and don't you always have rules in NSW?) dictate that he be chained up at all times so this was the easiest way out of it.
Saturday was a fun day. We weren't able to take Bruce the Dog to the beach as the van park as it is park of a reserve area and pets are banned, but we were able to take a drive down to another beach (Patches Beach) and take BtD out for a run along a near deserted beach.
Yep, that one tired but very happy dog.
We followed the exercise up with a good brekky and then headed off to a small township called Wardell which is on the Richmond River and repaired to the pub there to look at the magnificent fig trees and the pub's view of the river.
It's a hard life eh?
Sunday and we went for a drive into Ballina as walking the dog around the van park on a leash was not deemed to be much fun. Still, the dive into town was pleasant and we picked up some veggies and free range eggs from a farm gate so we were happy about that.
Ballina itself is a pleasant town and a bit bigger than I expected. The boardwalk along the river is very nice indeed and it takes you straight to the RSL which we couldn't go into because we had the dog. so we settled for a coffee and tide Bruce to the winch hook on the 'jero.
I knew it would come in useful for something some day!
We headed home and went through a place called Empire Vale which had the smallest post office I have ever seen. Gorgeous sin't it?
As we drove home we headed on past the van park and out to the mouth of the Richmond River. A spectacular place, but the rain was heading our way as you can see from this photo.
Feeling lazy we had dinner at the van park restaurant where we were entertained by a couple of Golden Guitar winners. It was a very pleasant end to a fun day.
Monday we just took our time to pack up and go home. As you can see, BtD was looking happy about it.
