On Safari

Glam camping - Not!  Camping, three, all alone, on a big vacant lonely roadside rest area, close to the geographical heart of the continent and miles and miles from signs of habitation.

In the steps of the explorer John McDouall Stuart hence the Stuart Highway.  His exceptional explorations took him across the continent from the south to the north coast in 1862 - on his third attempt.

Three times.  Persistence pays off.  Vote early vote often. 
 Australian correspondents will be relieved when the U S election ends and they can finish taking us to state after state to witness all the whohar while autumn leaves in Pennsylvania and all sorts of backgrounds flash past on media.
Democracy has declined and some wish to go backwards to certainty while change is where it is all at.
Forget about the biggest and the greatest. A just society is best but look at the opposition to any good moves.  In the U S it gets the label of socialisation and meets resistence - all our minds are shaped along certain lines while we could expand and explore new ways.
AT least the $US exchange rate is becoming more favourable for us - it is such a temptation.
  

Environmentalist on wheels.

''Games' have been exposed in the Australian army.
Thank you Australian mothers and fathers for bringing up sexists, weird, domestically challenged men unable to pitch in or take the good with the bad, forever boys and boy's games as their priority, raised with no expectation of taking close responsibility for family, hands-on child care and household tasks.
Waited upon. Thanks for never challenging your boy's sick attitudes towards women, gays and other nationalities. For indiscriminate mindless love of violent sport and media, violent entertainment and violent driving.
That is to the extent we as parents are responsible. 

Salesman at work.  A fold out camping bed under canvas has morphed into a five room complex. Under canvas. Underneath is a basic unit - a smallish shallow trailer built to tow off-road and on dirt tracks or wherever.

Early morning and about to leave the caravan park, these bikies had been to WA to a meeting and returned round the top end and were on the home run after covering a massive distance. A Wicked camper was also making tracks.

Not more about milk. Loved by campers and others is long-life milk or UHT milk.
Believe the company, Dairy Farmers, did a lot of work to perfect this handy product. Early it was taken up by caterers, eg, in airlines, and it must be perfect for export to those countries with hot weather which, ideally, is unsuitable for dairy farms.
For that reason, it was even unusual for dairies to start up in northern NSW. 
UHT milk is considered unsuitable by some experts.

The Bar Beach car park where European tourists were reorganizing their belongings on their way to far distant Cairns in far north Queensland. The monsoon season or 'big wet' is a feature of tropical Australia and timing is a factor.

The car park above Bar beach. Glorious plans to change the Newcastle beachfront areas are mooted. An inexpert longstand idea is that trees would enhance this 'bald' parking lot, however, trees can be difficult to grow near the sea and could block out the sea-views. Views and tree vandals have been linked.
In the opposite direction was a 1984 Suzuki FR80 - fashions go in cycles!

 

Port Macquarie is fast growing south of Crescent Head and has much more development as well as very good open spaces along the beachfront where a 'learn to surf' had set up. Port has a fair share of monoculture or sameness.

More tourists were seen on location with their Wicked campers.

  

The Malibu Classic event is an amateurs competition for all ages and is big in May in Crescent Head which, I read, in surfing terms, has the best ever right-hand point break. The Malibu or longboard is wider than the shortboard and has a rounded nose. 

Board riders: past the Wicked camper, the Pandanus tree, over the rocks, the sand, and to the waves such as they were on that day.

The tree is probably a Pandanus (or Screw Palm) which, in more resourceful climes, is used for everything, for building, making sleeping mates mats, rain capes, canoe sails, bags etc.

The large fruit, round and about 20cm across consisting of nuts segments, is used for food, and the best choice depends on local knowledge, (like, check whether it is safe to eat), the flesh is used for soups and saucers sauces, or fruit is heated over a fire or in a stone oven, and juice is strained out from the seed by squeezing it between the hands.

Or can be smoked cured and kept for many months and stored in the ceiling for example. In traditional cultures, this food was important in tropical high altitudes where other crops did not do well.

Twin cab ute found upstairs facing the wrong direction.

Another Wicked Camper:  Men have feelings too but who really cares or...but really who cares...

ha....ha....ha....!!

Written on the other side: if a man tells a woman she is beautiful she is willing to overlook his other lies.

Visitor from Perth WA on the way to Byron and the Gold Coast.

Wicked Camper. Laughing Kookaburra (feathered friend).
He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at

Newcastle City Council has worked wonders and has greatly improved the baths area. The workers arn't just moving the deck chairs around. A new workplace every few weeks for them and they will pack up soon and  leave the sea front for elsinore elsewhere.  Work is never ending but on the to-do list I would love a new surface outside the shower areas, entrance etc. Try walking there with bare feet, a smoother surface would be heaven.

Copenhagen Summit:  four sleeps to go.
More Danish trivia. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, ....to be, or not to be...Hamlet vacillated and look what happened to him....take heed....

This Canadian tourist said she loves Newcastle. With a friend, she is travelling from Cairns to Adelaide, about 2800 kilometres.











Another Wicked Camper message: "Love might be blind but marriage is a real eye opener"











At Nobbys Beach: Aquarius stuff plus "I'm not a babe or a chick, I'm a breasted person"

Spot the Wicked Camper. Travelling north? Visit Newcastle! Then further on do the outstanding Woodford Folk Festival 27 Dec to 1 Jan, just beyond Brisbane (with camping) our answer to Glastonbury.

In response to an objection to an outrageous slogan on a van it was said: "It is a parody like all our vans. They're effectively taking the mickey out of every subject we do" Particularly in the case of the home grown vans in this country.
Jesus said follow me...I am the way...he loves you even if no one else does

Going like a blur.
Non-wicked van, contour design and a traveller from the Netherlands.
Above: not up to standard at all.
And this is not a wicked .......

Camping at Mungo Brush is close to the shores of the Myall Lakes and has delightful little bays for swimming, boating and exploring where the overhanging paperbark trees shade the water and the scary water weeds prevail. Parks and Wildlife manage the camping areas.
Dingoes prowled around as this was the off-season. They were timid yet would steal from the camp site while the back was turned. Massive gonnana lizards are cheeky visitors in the summer months.
Other visitors were the French tourists in the camper van.


Mungo Brush Walk is a simple pleasure.
A grey strangler fig is visible, above, in an early stage of growth.
MUNGO BRUSH seems to be a small area of littoral rainforest between the sea and the lake. The canopy is quite low with relatively few species of plants such as strangler figs, vines, mosses and ferns that have adapted to the harse, salt ladened winds off the ocean.
The rocky hill, Mungo Brush, was one of the off-shore islands once before geological change set in. The waters have risen and fallen and big sand dunes have also formed far and wide disguised under the vegetation.
Sand mining for minerals was undertaken relatively close by and concern led to action to curtail mining activity and preserve and extend the domain of the park. The Worimi people occupied the lands living a fisher-hunter-gather lifestyle. Middens and other evidence of their occupation has been found.

The path through Mungo Brush is cool.


From the easterly shores.
A short distance to the north, a very narrow point in the lake has a vehicular ferry crossing with a tow line.
Crossing the water leads to Myall Resort and water activities, more popular in warmer weather.

Myall Shores Resort has cabins, caravans, camping and restaurant and grew from the legendary Leggs Camp.


Return north-west by the circular route on a gravel road follows the Myall River to Bulahdelah where house boats can be hired for a jaunt around the lakes. Navigating the narrow but tranquil river to the lakes would mean all hands on deck and advice and assistance is only a phone call away for the seafarer adventurer.

INTERSTATE

Muted early morn in remote hills in Queensland
Lower: Pandanus and the Sunshine Coast with Caloundra, Mooloolaba, Maroochydore, Noosa and the ten Glasshouse monoliths in the distance.

CAMPING

Mid Year Holiday time. Goin' feral!