We were up early again, and on the road by 8.30 a.m. Amazing! First stop was Maclean, 'The Scottish Town in Australia'. The town is full of historical buildings and very fascinating.
The beautifully painted toilet block on the edge of the river was the first fascinating sight. Beats graffiti!
The wooden and brick buildings are quite old, by Australian standards.
The most fascinating sight of all, were the hundreds of power poles painted with Scottish clan tartans, and each bearing the appropriate clan name. A sight that you will not see anywhere else!
There were also about seven or eight cafes along the street. I suppose people need a restorative drink after the shock of seeing telephone poles dressed up in tartans. For us, it was the necessary morning coffee, which I might add was excellent.
After that we drove through Grafton which has an old double bridge, i.e. the road is on top of the railway track. Grafton is also reputed to be one of Australia's most beautiful provincial cities, with its tree-lined streets, and elegant buildings. It is also famous for its abundance of mauve flowering jacaranda trees, and although they are at the end of their flowering period, still looked very grand. Both Maclean and Grafton are further up the Clarence River than Yamba and Iluka.
We then drove slowly (due to the building of a dual lane motorway) through a beautiful National Park. And just before Coffs Harbour we saw the sign 'The Big Banana'. Another 'big thing'. Wonderful. So we stopped of course, even though it meant negotiating a right hand turn from the dual lane carriageway.
Once people were quite content to visit 'The Big Things', get their picture taken, eat some of the fresh fruit, pay for a trip on a small train and perhaps buy a few cheap souvenirs. The main purpose of these places was to grow the fruit and sell it to wholesalers. Now there is obviously no money in growing fruit so they have had to diversify.
Bananas are grown around Coffs Harbour, as there are plenty of stalls about. But at 'The Big Banana' the land has been sold for housing, leaving just a small area for banana growing, in order to supply the shop. The tracks for the train were still there but very overgrown.
The main attraction was the small theme park, with rides, toboggan run, giant slide, ice skating rink and films. The souvenir shop was enormous. The place appeared to be very successful. Another Australian icon, 'The Big Banana' still surviving!
I think someone (not us) sliced the bag in order to get a glimpse of the bananas growing inside. The bananas we bought were absolutely divine, so much better than the ones you get in a supermarket. We decided against buying the chocolate covered bananas, a little too fattening. We need to watch our waistlines.
Now we are in the caravan park at South West Rocks, which is the largest seaside resort on the Macleay Valley Coast and is situated at the entrance of the Macleay River. The view from our camper van is magnificent, as we overlook a small bay. The only problem is, it is raining heavily. Yes it does rain in Australia, and I think it rains here often as the countryside is very lush looking, and some timber houses have green algae growing on the walls.
We consoled ourselves with a lovely bottle of red wine, and ate a huge amount of spagetti bolognaise. We were meant to have fish but found the fish shop after we saw the butchers.
Walter looking particularly happy with his glass of wine.
Tomorrow morning we are going for a swim in the sea, regardless of the weather. Some body surfing included, I think. We watched the experts body surfing as we drank our wine. We decided that we can do it too. It looked easy!
