Sydney To Coffs Harbour

After Sydney we set off for Coffs Harbour, we stopped off at a rest area for the night a place called Bulahdelah, one pub and an IGA supermarket.

We also bought some Pekin duck eggs from a very nice alternative lady who was selling produce outside her house.

Our rest area was quite noisy with some old chap playing his radio full blast with the tunes of country music, still I suppose it was slightly better than Rap.

Country Music dude is not in the photo, in case you were trying to spot the trouble maker.

The following day we continued on our journey. And this is the sign that greeted us.

To all the Middlesbrough folk, we were heading AWAY from Newcastle.

We were quickly running out of water and decided to make a detour to a rest area that had water, somehow we managed to get lost and ended up finding a tap near a beach but the hose wasn't long enough, so after moving lots of dustbins and unhitching the van and physically moving it we got to the water.

We arrived at our rest area and had our Pekin duck eggs for tea with bacon and sausages yum. Those eggs were the best we have ever had, think you had better get some Pekin ducks Pam. We all got tucked up in bed as we didn't have the luxury of the heater with being on battery, it was soo cold that night, Col and I were clinging to each other and I don't know who was keeping who the coldest. Even Kaya our dog who normally sleeps near the door on her bit of carpet had moved onto the bottom of Rosie's bed.

We woke the next morning  and set off for Coffs on the way we stopped off at Port Macquarie.

It was a beautiful sunny day, we sat near the beach and it was just lovely.

We called in at a place called Tuncarry, with yet another Stockland centre and happily for me a Michels. For those in the UK Michels makes the best coffee ever. Col and I have devised a plan he buys his box of wine and I get to have the equivalent cost in coffees. We arrived in a sunny Coffs Harbour on Tuesday. On Wednesday we went to the tourist info and to a few schools for Col to try and find work. At the first school he called at we sat in the car he was gone quite a while. When he came back he had a huge grin on his face, he recounted the tale of what had happened which I will let him write about. In short he had got teaching work for the Friday and the Monday.

We had a look around Coffs Harbour and we all agreed that we were going to like it here. Thursday we were all taking our time getting up and organised which is nothing unusual for us lot, when Col got a phone call from the school asking how soon he could be in. Col fortunately was dressed the rest of us had to drive him there in our pyjamas, I was praying the car would perform and not let us down as  I had visions of another RACV rescue in our night attire. The children and I had no dilemmas and came back and did some schooling, some Italian.

Back to Col: They are becoming quiet fluent at Italian. They can count to over 100, pass pleasantries with each other, ask and tell of birthdays. They know the days of the week, months of the year and they can wave their arms about madly as they do so, just like an Italian!

I walked into the aforementioned school, Coffs Harbour High School and found the main office. When I asked if there was someone I could speak to about casual teaching, a fella approached me and asked "by heck fella, wheeer abouts is thee from?" It was the person in charge of casual teaching and he was from Heckmondwike - less than 10 miles from where I was born in Leeds!