Along the way I took a little detour into the Richmond Range National Park and there was some very nice views over the farmland, there was also a nice lookout at Mallanganee.
At Tabulam there was a very long one lane timber bridge crossing the Clarence River but because of traffic I didn't get chance to take a photo. A couple of kilometers west of Tabulam I took the north turn onto Paddy's Flat road which started out as a bitumen road before turning into quite a well maintained gravel road. I got to the river at about 12:30pm and stopped for a bit of a look as it was running quite quickly under the bridge.
Then it was across the bridge and a quick drive around the very empty camping area (there was only one other campsite at that stage). While I was walking down to have a look at the river Shane rolled in from the north and we selected our camp site and proceeded to get setup. About this time I realized the first thing I had forgotten was the UHF radio, the first of several things that I had forgotten. As I had a new tent (Coleman Instant Up 4 man tent) that I hadn't even unpacked, I decided to make a time lapse movie of the setup. So I set the iPhone 6+ up on a tripod and used the time lapse mode in the iOS 8 camera app. The app handles everything and produces the movie which I then uploaded to YouTube.
We had camp setup pretty quickly and it became obvious that only red cars were allowed at our camp.
As it was quite warm and no hint of rain we settled in under some shady trees with cold beverages and caught up on the state of the world since we had last been camping. As it got a little later in the afternoon we decided to go and find some wood for the evenings campfire but the supply in the immediate vicinity of the camp site was minimal so we headed off for a quick drive back along the road and collected suffient wood pretty quickly. I then started dinner cooking (lamb roast) in the Cobb Oven and had a few more drinks around the camp fire which wasn't really needed for heat but for visual appeal. Around this time the mossies made an appearance and they were pretty thick, so it was out with the Bushmans repellant which worked a treat but left that horrible smell of DEET.
Dinner ended up being sort of souvlaki, with roast lamb in a wrap with tzatziki, tabouli, tomato, lettuce and a squeeze of lemon - excellent, even if I do say so myself and the bonus was tons of left over lamb for later lunches and dinners. I also remembered why I don't normally get too fancy with cooking while camping as things are just harder to cleanup without a kitchen and hot and cold running water around you. Then it was back to chatting around the campfire while the clouds zipped by over head but there was no real threat of rain they just obscured the stars. We headed off to bed around 10 pm and it was still fairly warm. Over night there was a very heavy dew and the fly ended up quite wet on the outside and wet underneath from condensation however the inner tent was completely dry so I was glad that I had taken the time to put the fly up.
I had a lazy sleep in next morning and spent some time reading a book while Shane went for a walk around the ridges where he found a serviceable dunny but the redback spiders chased him out and he vowed to return with some insecticide and get revenge. Next up was my usual camping brekkie of bacon and eggs before a leisurely reading of a book under a shady tree. The sky was perfectly clear and blue and it was starting to get very hot, so I changed into swimming gear and packed the towel for a walk down to the creek. We found a fairly shallow spot under some shady trees and simply sat in the flowing water and cooled down nicely. I would be back here a few times through the day to cool down.
Then it was time for a walk around the south bank of the river to look at the old graves and the tank traps left over from WW2.
I stopped in to cool off in the river before heading back to camp for some lunch. It was feeling very warm and the thermometer in the car was registering 38 deg C. So I settled in for a lazy afternoon reading and trying to keep cool. I may have just dozed off for a little bit every now and then and Shane claims there was snoring coming from the tent but it must have been an echo from one of the other campers. 😄 It was back to the creek to cool off for awhile before a simple dinner and then we settled around the camp fire again. Tonight there were no clouds above us and we had a great view of the stars and of all the passing planes of which there were quite a few. It had cooled down a bit once the sun had set and we didn't get the mossies visiting us like the previous evening. There were banks of clouds to the south and east and they showed quite a lot of lightning activity but we couldn't even hear any thunder. We went to bed around 9:30 pm as we were exhausted from a tough day of reading, swimming and relaxing although I'm sure the hot weather also took its toll.
The next day started in a similar vein to the previous one for me as I had a little sleep in and reading session while Shane had launched his canoe and gone for a paddle. I had a leisurely brekkie and waited while the dew and condensation on the tent dried off so that I could pack up. About this time the low voltage cutoff on the fridge cut in and I started and idled the car for 15 or so minutes to put some charge back into the battery. This was pretty good, one and three quarters of a day from a 90 amp hour battery in very hot conditions while keeping the fridge cold. Once it was dry I packed the new tent up and of course had problems fitting it back in the bag it had come in, ended up leaving the fly separate and putting it in the car without trying to stuff it in the bag.
At about 10 pm Shane and I parted company, me heading to the north and him heading south to do a bit of exploring. Just before Urbanville I dropped into Tooloom Falls to have a look. There was a lot of water flowing over the falls and the campground was pretty full although it looked like quite a few people were in the process of packing up and heading home after the school holidays.
Then it was onto Wodenbong were I stopped on the eastern side of the town at a park where it looked like you could camp for a grand fee of just $5. I then headed towards Kyogle but turned off towards the Lions Road and then went exploring the Border Ranges national park. The camping ground at Sheep Station creek was virtually empty but it looked like it would be a reasonably nice spot to camp. Going further into the national park they had closed off the loop around some of the lookouts and picnic spots, so I continued on the main section of the road which eventually comes out on the Kyogle to Murwillumbah road. At this stage I could see where all the storms that went around us the night before ended up. There was a lot of leaves, branches and even trees down on the road. The Rangers who were clearing it all up said that a nasty storm had passed through the area over night. I stopped at one of the lookouts for a photo and could see some rain clouds heading towards me.
So I headed onto the Bar Mountain lookout picnic area where I had a quick bit of lunch before continuing out of the park and into Murwillumbah and then connecting up to the main highway and onto home. All up I had done just on 500 kms over the weekend and got some serious relaxing done. While it was quite warm at the camping ground we had the river to keep us cool. The camp ground was pretty empty with only 4 or 5 other groups there and we hardly knew they were there.
