Day 67 – Monday 22 August 2016 – Coffs Harbour - Tuncurry

Ever since we have been planning this trip there is something Shane has been threatening.... errrr..... planning to do - go to Coffs Harbour to the Big Banana dressed in a Minion Onesie.  Hey - I don't ask why anymore - you just run with it!  Given we got back a little too late last night I promised to make it our first job this morning before packing up to leave since the Big B was just a couple of hundred metres down the road from our nature-strip park.

So up we got, let dogs out quickly and headed for the Big Banana.  On arrival at said location at around 7.45am you would think there wouldn't be many people around, we could get the desired photo and get back to camp without a hitch.  But then this is us we're talking about and things rarely go to plan.  What should we find when we get there but a local radio station doing an outside live broadcast from the balcony right beside the banana.  Undeterred, our little minion jumped out of the car, I took a few hurried photos and with a quick smile to the announcers we jumped in the car and were off.

Despite being up early we were quite slow getting packed up and didn't leave the park until well after 10.00am.  Being a little tired of the day to day moves, we opted to bypass our original destination of Port MacQuarie and drive 250km to Forster-Tuncurry.  Once again the roads didn't offer much interest and even views of the ocean were few and far between.  The one thing we did notice was that although there was plenty of roadkill, unlike our experiences so far there are very few large birds around taking advantage of a free feed.

We took the detour to Port Macquarie to have a quick look around before continuing on the journey.  The one thing that has been a little frustrating throughout this whole trip has been missed opportunities to take photos due to having the caravan attached to the car.  Often there is nowhere to pull over and even visiting towns has been somewhat frustrating to find a park anywhere near where you would like to go.  Consequently we didn't spend a lot of time at Port Macquarie either.

On arrival in Tuncurry and on the way to our caravan park we happened across some fishermen who were cleaning their catch for the day with a very attentive audience.  We couldn't help but stop and take some photos.  I have never actually been this close to pelicans before and hadn't realised they had so much colour on their beaks.  Like oversized seagulls they were just as bossy and cheeky and gave us plenty of entertainment and opportunities posing for photos.

Just a couple of blocks further on we arrived at our destination and camp for the next two nights to find two ducks having a paddle in the pool.  

The park was lovely and set on the river bank, although we had opted for a nice big site on a corner which was very easy to access.  Out of interest we timed ourselves to see how long it was taking us to set up these days.  15 minutes wasn't bad to hook up to power, change over fridge and freezer from battery to power, take the van off the car, let down the four corner supports, hook up to water & sullage, roll out the awning, set up the 3 puppy pens and two chairs.  HIgh five for a great job.