Day 17, Saturday 27/6/20 Nambucca to Moonee Beach, overcast 17

We girls put our collective feet down and insist on a late start because we can’t check in at Moonee Beach until 11:00am and for heaven’s sake it is only 62kms away. The boys are edgy but it is nice squeezing in a last walk on the V wall. The surf on the bar is pounding and two jet skis are ferrying surfers out to the waves. It’s chilling to watch as the jet skis disappear in the troughs. Two old guys (at least my age) behind me are watching them, one says “at least they’ve got leg ropes, when we lost a board it was a long swim”.

Reflections Moonee Beach caravan park is bordered by two creeks, Moonee and Sugar Mill and the ocean with Split Solitary island offshore. The unpowered area has a bush feel being bordered by forest and the park itself is well treed. Lorikeets screech overhead as they feed on the eucalyptus blossom, rabbits hop about the sites, bin chickens (ibis) patrol the grounds and brush turkeys chase each other at sundown. It’s a little like living inside a bird sanctuary. Our sites are half as large again as a normal site and as we’re all in a row we have oodles of space.

Outside the park a small bridge crosses Sugar Mill Creek and leads to the headland. Huge waves break on the surf beach beyond the sand bar of Moonee Creek.

El Prado cooks steak on the Weber and Woody cooks Caravan Chips in the oven. We sit outside, it is a mild night and we are joined by a young cattle drover from Kyogle who talks of moving 3500 head down around Roma, of cattle ‘rushing’ during the night and a dozen ending up on the veranda of the Mundrabilla pub. He talks too of cleaning up after the Rappville fires last year and the heartache of spending four hours shooting burnt cattle.

You learn things about this country when you least expect it.

Accom: $36.00

Travelling Kms: 62kms