Spot Prizes, of a Kathy Shell, Fridge Magnet, from my artwork, will be being given, for the BEST Photo, submitted to my Kathy Shell's fan's photos.  Competition is open to all who "like", my page and submit a photo with permission for me to publish in my blog.

I had a competition running on my Kathy Shell" page on facebook where I had been choosing one of my readers, who have “liked”, my page, photographs and I was painting an art work from it and then having prints made to send to them a copy.  I will need to change this, as I am not painting at the moment. My appologies.
Things change.
While everything is going well, as regards my primary role, of being a carer, things have also gone differently to how I had expected.  There are at least a dozen photos already submitted that I love and one a clear winner as the sort of place I would love to go to and paint. This would have been, the one I would have chosen to paint, if I had time to paint right now.  It is becoming increasingly difficult to combine carer duties and painting at the moment.  I live, in hope, it will get easier.  J  

This photo of the view from Fred Piper Memorial Lookout, on Brown Mountain, NSW, Australia. Shows pastures of Bega shire, with trees, in foreground that looks out over the Bega Valley.  This photograph was submitted to my ‘fan’s photo’, in my Khaty Shell page by . Meryll Jeff Palethorpe , thank you Meryll. 

This view is on theSnowy Mountains Highway in New South Wales, Australia. The highway runs across the highland region in the southern part of the State. It starts at its junction with the Hume Highway near Gundagai. From there, the highway runs generally south-east, through the town of Tumut, and up onto the southern highland plateau past Yarrangobilly Caves and the historic Kiandra Goldfields, then down through Adaminaby to Cooma. From Cooma the highway continues in a south easterly direction through Nimmitabel then descends down Brown Mountain to Bemboka then continues on to Bega and Tathra on the south coast of New South Wales.

In winter, much of the highway is subject to heavy snowfalls and the highway is the access route to Selwyn Snowfields ski resort.

Meryll Jeff Palethorpe , wins ths fridge magnet of Brachina Gorge, in the Flinders Ranges, reproduced from the original oil painting I completed about 30 years ago.

 

The migration of gray nomads heading from colder winter climates towards the sunshine and warm winters of the tropics, happens around the globe and especially here in Australia.  
Some understanding of the roads and service available is needed before choosing your route.

In Australian, it is common for the senior mobile, residents of Perth and southern WA to tour the north west coast to Broome, creating a congestion of tourists there and a serious shortage of accommodation for a short time, midyear. In Western Australia, once you leave the south of the state, there are good bases for automotive products and vehicle servicing at Karratha, Geraldton, Broome, Derby and Kununurra. There are long distances where no service is available and an accomodation and caravan park shortage, so it is important to tour the west with a vehicle in top condition and self sufficient.


When touring north through the center of Australia, via the Stuart Highway, there are excellent service centres, for automotive products at Port Augusta,  Coober Pedy, Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Katherine then Darwin in the North.  Remember there can be distances of 800 kilometres between service centres on these trips.

The safest trip if you are not confident of touring long distances  away from mechanics, vehicle  service centres for  automotive products, is to stick to the heavily populated south east of Australia, you are very safe, touring the coast, from Adelaide all the way around to Port Douglas in the North, knowing roadside service is easily accessed.

Reg and I love touring ‘outback’, well outside of the roadside service access area and we strive to stay on roads that are travelled daily by truck drivers, carry a lot of water, and have a powerful 4 wheel drive vehicle and some funds on us to ‘tip’, any truck driver who might have to assist us in an emergency.

The photos are of Port Douglas, about as far north as the average gray nomad, tows their caravan on the east coast of Australia.

 

Our car is back from its 45thousand mini service and I can begin to make plans for the Queensland leg of our tour, I spent today wandering around Ballina, filling in time while the work was being done.

We crossed the Richmond River in the ferry at $4. A one-way crossing, this saved a long round trip and it was an interesting crossing.  The river is tidal, the boat ramps were mostly pontoons and these were bobbing up and down in the waves making a noise.

I found a small shopping complex in West Ballina, there was a very cheap butcher shop chickens for $5. Each a better price that the $25. each I paid further south and the avocados here are 10 for $7, I had been paying up the $4. each for these.  Great to finally, be able to shop at good prices again.

There was a big community notice board out the front where everyone placed their advertisements,  I saw foosball tables advertised, never heard of a foosball table.

Reg and I wandered into what we thought was a nursery and discovered it was more like the tip shop, garden recycle store only there were no sales people and no prices on anything???  Just plants in all conditions, from huge clumps to small pots, and oddments of garden ornaments and signs that they had recently been watered by someone.  Certainly different, I have not seen a garden recycling place like this before.  The sign said to come in, wander around, look and sit and relax, though there was no where to sit. :-), maybe the seats had found new homes :-).
 

Tomorrow our  Toyota Land Cruiser, Work Mate, Troop carrier, V8 Turbo Diesel car, henceforth called ‘troopy’, goes in for some work to fix the first sign of trouble we have had with it. Great that Ballina has so many servicew

I am glad I woke up it was still covered by its three year  extended service plan  as we purchased it and our Eco Tourer caravan, new less than three years ago.

We had best strap on our walking shoes as we could be in for a long day in the town of Ballina and we have our fingers crossed that all the work, can be done in the one day and we are free from Friday onward.

There is a Jazz Band here at Ballina Beach Holiday Park, on Friday evening so I think it will do Reg and I the world of good to go out to dinner together and enjoy the evening entertainment provided here in this park. Keen to see the fire show on the Saturday night too.

 

Reg and I had a fantastic meet up with friends, here at the 17-kilometre post, north of Raymond Terrace on route to our next holiday destination, South Ballina Beach Holiday Park. We found this overnight rest area, in our Camps Australia Wide book.

Thank you so much, Meryll, Jeff and Lorraine, for coming to visit us.

We chose this location as it was the first free roadside campsite once we had past the main, Sydney to Newcastle, area, on route to South Ballina beach our next destination. 

Sorry I missed out on meeting another good friend, Monday, the first day she had free,  would have been leaving it a bit late to make Ballina beach by next Tuesday morning. I cannot coordinate with all my friends. Linda a friend on the Gold Cost will be in Victoria while I am in the Gold Coast.

Looking forward to meeting Paulene, Narelle and Gem J as we wander up into Queensland, soon.  This is proving to be a wonderful, meet and greet holiday.

Coffee or tea at our van is a BYO sugar occasion, lol, we run a very natural and simple pantry, even have,  natural sleep aids likeLavender, Chamomile and cuddles. J

 

The long weekend is approaching and so Reg and I will be moving out of the Caravan Park system for the next few days and returning to the free roadside camps as we travel north to our next destination, South Ballina Beach, where we should arrive on Tuesday.

I will be packing the electrical cooking supplies and the water filter jug I fill direct from the caravan parks tap water and changing over to bottled water.

 Another system would have been to have included, stainless steel drums water tanks under the caravan or car for drinking water. This was an extra option. We do have three plastic water tanks for the caravan, one for the washbasins and showers, the other is gray water to flush the toilet ten there i the black water waste tank.

I like to fill, 2 litre cordial bottles with filtered water, for our drinking water, when we are bypassing caravan parks and need to carry our own drinking water, supply. I allow 5 litres a day for the two of us and the dog with a back up of one or more additional, 10 litres, depending, on how far we will be from a water source and for how long.

Obviously travelling up the east coast of Australia I am not carrying anywhere near the weight of water as we do when touring through outback NT or WA.

So tomorrow, morning I say our reluctant goodbye to beautiful Seven Mile Beach Holiday Park, where we have been staying for the past fewdays and just loving it.  

Here are some photos of the riverside area of Seven Mile Beach Holiday Park.

 

History of Boydtown and the Seahorse Inn

Boydtown owes its existence to the early Australian whaling industry, which was already flourishing in Twofold Bay in the early 1830’s. In 1843 a flamboyant entrepreneur named Benjamin Boyd decided to establish a base in Boydtown for his whaling and pastoral operations. Boyd was one of the most colourful and important characters in the Nation’s early history and Twofold Bay became the centre of his operations.

Boyd had a great deal of financial backing, which was evident in the grand style in which Boydtown was built. The best evidence of this grandeur is the historic Seahorse Inn, built in 1843 using convict labour. Boyd also built brick houses, a store, a woolshed and a jetty where Boyd’s vessels could be berthed. Nearby Boyd constructed a lookout, known as Boyd's Tower, which was built for the whalers to spot their potential catch. A church was also begun, but never completed. The tower and church ruins can still be seen today.

The Depression of the 1840's hit Benjamin Boyd hard and brought an end to many of his operations. From a prosperous commercial centre with 200 inhabitants, Boydtown soon became a deserted ruin, with buildings abandoned and deteriorating, and part of the population moving to Eden. Boyd left Australia for the Californian Gold Fields, but disappeared while hunting at Guadalcanal.

The Seahorse Inn remained deserted, reduced to a mere shell due to vandalism and natural deterioration. In 1936 it was puchased by the Whiter brothers, who renovated, restored and added a second storey.

In 1973 the Seahorse Inn was purchased by the Lyon Group with a vision to restoring it to its former glory. The Seahorse Inn has now been completely renovated to provide first class accommodation and conference facilities for the local and international tourist market. Renovations were completed in 2006.