Tuesday 10.5.2011: Left camping ground at Coffs Harbour by 10 am, looked at shops - Di bought a new pair of slacks as I couldn’t find my old slacks, thought I had left them at home. (About a week later I found them hiding in the cupboard.) Drove up highway to the turn off to Moonie Beach on the right, then the next left to Nana Glen, then drove on to Glenreagh Recreational Reserve, (50 kilometers south of Grafton) it is surrounded by high cliffs on the west, north and east, lovely peaceful spot. Showers were lovely and hot, good design of a bush shower. Very cold night 6 degrees, opened curtains about 7 am and the sun started to come in, all along the passenger side of the bus and warmed us up, at 9.45 am the temperature in the Coaster had reached 22 degrees.
Wednesday 11.5.2011: Left Glenreagh at 9.55 am for Grafton, to get a stone chip in the windscreen repaired. Di had a haircut in Grafton. We then drove to Wooli on the coast, booked into the Wooli Caravan Park for two nights..Thursday 12.5.2011: Rest day, went for a walk along the pathway to the breakwater wall, very cold and extremely windy, came back to motor home along the sand as it was very firm on the edge and I thought it would not affect my knee. I caught up with typing the trip diary.
Went to dinner at the Wooli Bowling Club.
Friday 13.5.2011: The chap next to us told us about a house in Ulmara with bananas for sale for $2 for 12, and directed us how to find the house, so we followed his instructions and found the house, bought the bananas, then drove on to Grafton, where Lloyd found a barber and had a haircut, very short, he won’t need a haircut for a couple of months.
We found the Grafton Showground dump point, then drove up the Summerland Way to Braemar Park which is a free camp.
Saturday 14.5.2011: Cold morning about 5 degrees - temperature got up to early 20s.
Drove into Casino to stock the fridge up before the Disc Bowls Rally, was just about to go to the check out when I spotted Aileen in front of me, so we had a good chat, then met outside with the guys and they decided to come down to Braemar Park for a free camp with us. Played disc bowls for a couple of hours in the afternoon, just to practice.
Sunday 15.5.2011: Another cold morning about 5 degrees - temperature reached the early 20s. We had more disc bowls practice with Aileen and Brian and made our way up to Casino to be there by 2 pm. We set up camp, Lloyd and I put the annex on so we would have somewhere to play cards at night. Rosemarie and Bob arrived little later and we all had a practice for disc bowls, then happy hour, dinner then played cards.
Monday 16.5.2011: Put our names down for the Disc Bowls Competition for the week, practiced disc bowls, then went to happy hour with everyone and found out when we would be on the next day. Tuesday 17.5.2011: Cold with southerly winds. We were all bright and early 9.30 am at the court area to find a table in our Sydney Wanderers uniform. We all played one game of mixed pairs and one game of ladies or mens’ tripples in the morning and the same again for the afternoon. We finished about 3.30 pm. So we had our own happy hour in our annex, then had a late dinner, too tired for cards.
Wednesday 18.5.2011 : Still cold and windy played our games the same as yesterday round robin style.
Happy hour, then caught the courtesy bus into the RSM club and had dinner.
Thursday 19.5.2011: A bit of rain. Lay day, so we all took it easy and rested - Rosemarie, Bob, Lloyd and I caught the bus into Casino to look for ideas to decorate our hats for the dinner on Saturday night. We were all birds the girls tripples were Swans, the guys tripples were Rosellas, Brian & Aileen were parrots, Rosemarie & Bob were ducks, Lloyd and I were swifts, so we had fun in all the $2 shops. Lloyd had found the birds on the internet and copied them to a memory stick, so all we had to do was get them printed and tart the hats up a bit. We found a big blow up parrot and a picture of Pirate Parrot for Brian, the Rosella tomato sauce picture blown up for the guys and white swans for us. It was a bit of fun.
Practiced disc bowls, had happy hour, dinner and cards but not too late to be ready for tomorrow.
Friday 20.5.2011: 9am start, same round robin arrangement, then we came back to the motor homes and had happy hour for a long time, dinner and bed, as we had all made it to the ¼ finals.
Saturday 21.5.2011: 9am start again we all played our games in the morning and the girls made it through to the finals and came second.. A great thrill. The dinner was at 7 pm. Brian won the hat as the Pirate Parrot with the blow up Parrot on a stick poking out of his pocket, he won a bottle of wine, and the girls were presented with a cheque for $150 which we cashed the next morning and shared $50 each.
Sunday 22.5.2011: A bit of rain about. Brian, Aileen, Rosemarie & Bob all left early this morning, Lloyd & I went to Church, then shopped and came back and did the washing and I hung it under cover outside the laundry blowing in the breeze, I only had to put it in the dryer for about ½ an hour at the end of the day.
Monday 23.5.2011: 11 degrees - 20 degrees. Whilst we were in Casino yesterday, we went to the Information Centre to check on the road across to Tenterfield and Goondiwindi, we found out the bridge about an hour out of Casino would be closed between 11am and 2pm for roadwork, so we made sure we were on the road early enough to be over the bridge before they closed the road. Driving along the road you could see the devastation of the floods along the river, where lots of huge gums lay in the river where they fell, you could also see the debris in a line in fences and trees, in the trees the debris was about eight feet above road level. We drove into rain and the closer we got to Tenterfield which is high up, the colder the temperature became. Had lunch in a Bakery at Tenterfield, then drove on toward Yetman about 180 kilometers from Casino, there were a few washed away bridges with detours around them whilst road and bridge repairs were being carried out and a lot of damage from the floods earlier in the year. The ground was very wet with all the creeks and lowlying areas full of water it‘s not safe for us to venture off the bitumen. At Yetman we stayed beside the tennis courts in the sports field and paid $10 for the night, the others staying that night were very nice invited us to happy hour, they had an old gas cylinder cut back for a fire and plenty of music, we all had a lovely night, next morning everyone said goodbye.
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