Nambucca Heads

Thursday 26th April, (Nambucca Heads).

I discovered last evening, while checking my banking details, that my health insurance company have not been deducting my contributions for coverage for the last three months, I had detected that this happened two months ago, can’t remember mentioning it before, and enquiries with them did not really reveal a reason for this but they did ensure me they would rectify the situation. Imagine my surprise to find out it is still happening, considering that they told me today that due to being un-financial we would not have been covered if the need arose, but believe me I have insisted that until they do rectify the situation we would be covered and they agreed, but repayment of any claims would only be made when I become financial.

Our next door neighbour, with his local knowledge and contacts, warned me this evening that there was a severe thunder storm on its way to this area and it would be likely that hail would accompany the storm. With the history of large stone being the case in local storm he suggested covering my car. His suggestion was to park my car in the car park under the local hotel, as there was plenty of room, but my ideas were different; I figured that if this situation was going to occur once, then it is bound to occur again so I decided that it would be advantageous to have my own remedy in providing cover in the event that one could not rely on under cover car parks being in the location when it does happen again. I measured the awning on the caravan to see if the car would fit in it, and surprise, surprise, it would fit with 200- 300mm clearance to disembark the vehicle. The car was parked under the awning, another tarp was placed across the front of the awning to fully cover the front of the car and all was well and protected. The problems that arose were that of not being very much room to exit the caravan, and now limited shelter to go out and have a smoke, so when the storm arrived and passed by us without hardly a drop of rain I have decided that if I am to come up with my own idea then it will have to be some other method such as a tarp supported by poles to cover the vehicle in the normal outside environment. If I was to come up with a satisfactory system I could use it on a regular basis as normal parking in caravan parks is generally under trees and, especially when it rains, they shed sap and such which stain the car and sometimes takes a polish to remove it. So I will put pen to paper and keep an eye out for a suitable tarp, price taken into account, and see what I can come up with.

We located and visited the local information centre today to see what there is to do while we are in the area. After studying the info we received we found places to visit like Bellingen and Dorrigo, which have scenic lookouts and waterfalls and such, but the problem being is that they are about a 100-150km drive to see, and we have in the past decided, along with Linda’s dislike for continual long trips; of which I cant disagree, that we would not make such trips to visit places as eventually we would be back in the area and have an idea then what to look out for and camp in an area that is closer. This also would save a lot of unnecessary travelling, putting a lot of extra mileage on the vehicle, which I am hopeful of lasting us for a long time, as it really is an ideal tow vehicle. There is also the “pub with no beer” in the area, which is reasonably close, so we would feel obligated to visit there out of curiosity if nothing else. There are also a couple of other places within that area we could drop in on as well while we are going there, so that should fill in a day for us.

The caravan park is situated around a lagoon, and on the other side of the lagoon is the break wall on the river inlet. A local tradition in the areas around here are for people to write graffiti, for the want of a better term; but neat graffiti, on the large rocks on the break wall and some of them are quite catching, like the one below that would be my philosophy nowadays if I had thought of it.