I slept in a bit knowing that I only had a few things left to load into the car and that it wouldn't take long to finishing packing and get away. Left home about 9:30 am and headed south via the highway, not long into NSW and the traffic started backing up due to an accident, so I made a quick u-turn and headed down the scenic coast road. Stopped and had a look at a couple of the towns on the way, boy is there a lot of building going on around Kingscliff and Casuarina.
Back out to the highway only to run into more crappy taffic courtesy of the road works happening around the back of Byron Bay. Finally, got past the traffic and cruised down to Broadwater where I turned off the highway and drove through Broadwater National Park to Evans Head.
This is a very nice town right on the beach where the Evans River meets the sea. It has grown a bit since I was last here but still has a charming seaside village feel to it. I grabbed a pie and sausage roll (both excellent) from the bakery and drove up to the lookout on the south side of the river and had some lunch while keeping an eye put for any passing whales. Then a bit of a drive around to Chinaman's Beach followed by a drive down into part of the northern section of Bundjalung national park to a little creek which ends up running into the Evans River. You can't go too far into the national park from the north as it is an Air Force exclusion zone.
Back out to the highway and then south to the turn off for Bundjalung. It's about 20 km of quite good gravel road to the camping ground at Black Rocks. I finally got there at around 1:30 pm and set up camp in my designated spot. The camping grounds have been upgraded substantially since I was last here 7 or 8 years ago. Like a lot of Qld national parks you need to book and pay ahead of time, also there is a car entry fee to be paid as well. I have a two year pass for the car and that saves heaps of money, although camping at Black Rocks is expensive for a single person as they charge per site rather than per person ($20 per night). All the sites are in very good condition and are fenced off and screened from each other. They all have a picnic table, fire place and clothes line and the shared facilities (including BBQs) are in good nick.
There is enough Telstra signal at the camp grounds for SMS and phone calls but internet is not so good. I walked down to the beach to look at the coffee rock which gives the camp ground it's name and found good (4 bars) phone signal, probably form Iluka and Yamba in the south.
I walked along the beach to the old car exit from the beach, it is very eroded and it is no longer possible to get onto the beach from the camp grounds. Then it was back to camp for a cool drink. I then went for a quick walk to the canoe launching ramp on Jerusalem Creek to see what it looked like. I had packed the kayak but the wind and current was way too strong for me to try paddling so I followed the short loop back to camp.
I thought this was going to be a nice easy stroll but they must have had a lot of rain down here recently as quite long sections of the track were ankle to shin deep in water. My Crocs were working quite well as self draining shoes but they have seen a few kms and don't have much tread left, so I almost ended up on my bum in the water in a few spots where there was a muddy bottom rather than sandy bottom to the track. Back at camp I relaxed and as it got dark and set about cooking dinner. Then after eating and cleaning up I settled in to catch up on some reading. When it got really dark I wandered down to the beach and skygazed for quite awhile. The moon was fairly small and setting in the west so I had a great view of the Milky Way and all the other stars you don't normally see when you are in a big city. Then it was back to camp and a bit more reading before turning in for the night. The wind had dropped off as the sun went down but the sound of the surf on the beach was quite loud and that is great to have in the background when going to sleep.
