Before we even think about a big trip in the van, we need to do two or three 1-week trips in the caravan to give it a good "shakedown" and learn more about what's in store for us when we do a bigger trip of 4-5 weeks in April/May.
As such, we have planned and booked an 9 day 1,300km return trip to Woolgoolga (6 nights) with a stop at Jimmy's Beach at Hawks Nest (2 nights) on the return leg. We hope to get more familiar with van life, the setup, packup, towing and life on the road.
After packing the car early Friday 5th Feb 2021, we headed off to pick up the van for the drive to Woolgoolga (about 30 mins north of Coffs Harbour).
This time we loaded only a couple of days of food into the van fridge (there is a supermarket in every town to pick up supplies, so why carry them in the van?) and loaded all the drinks that we were taking into the 12V fridge in the car.
We started our journey at 6:30am and took the M5, M7, M2 and NorthConnex to get onto the Pacific highway. Getting out of Sydney took about 1 hr 15 mins and then once on the highway we sat on around 90km/h and it was a comfortable drive. We stopped around 10am at a cafe in Bulahdelah for a coffee and toast before continuing on.
Lunch was at a roadside rest area at about 1pm. Ham and salad rolls that we accessed from the van and we ate while sitting at the picnic amenities at the rest stop.
We hit Woolgoolga around 3pm and were set up and done by about 4:00pm.
Woolgoolga Lakeside Holiday Park is ideally located right on the coast with the beach on one side and the lake on the other. It is about 1km from the main town shops. It is an older van park with smaller sites and as such, a bit tight to get into but it was certainly worth it.
A very friendly park with great amenities.
Once we set up, we were visited by our good friends Robbie and Bronwyn who live in Woolgoolga, and we spent the evening catching up over nibbles, drinks and eventually dinner.
We spent the first two days swimming in the lake as the ocean beach was a bit rough. The lake was beautiful, the water warm and the scenery picturesque.
We took a drive into the mountains with our friends on one of those days, heading south to Coffs then up Waterfall Way to beautiful Bellingen and Dorrigo and explored their surrounds. There are so many picturesque drives, river swimming holes and things to see that you really need a couple of days to do it justice.
We decided to explore a little further north by car and drove up to visit a place called Red Rock. If you like fishing, swimming, kayaking and bushwalks, then this is a magnificent destination!
The photos above show Red Rock Beach which has a calm water cove to the south, while the second photo (directly above) shows fishermen standing on red rock at the mouth of the creek. Red Rock Creek opens up to the ocean (at the red rock) and is therefore tidal. People jump in with tubes and other floatation devices on a run-in tide and ride the slow current into the national park. The creek goes for several kilometres into the national park and is a great kayak paddle - take a packed lunch and plenty of water!
We also joined our friends at Woolgoolga Headland to watch the sunset while eating the best fish and chips we've ever had and came from a shop called Sea Salt. If ever there, try the crumbed bream fillet!
Our friend Robbie is a great musician and we were invited to his friends place to watch them have a jam session on the verandah. Robbie is the guy in the far background wearing the dark grey cap. Below is a sample of their talent.
After 6 nights ar Woolgoolga, we headed south to Jimmy's Beach at Hawks Nest. We decided not to do the complete return trip in one hit otherwise we'd be putting the van away in the dark. Also, it gives us a chance to practice the setup and take down again!
It took about 4 hours to get to Jimmy's Beach and the drive was fairly easy with the Landcruiser towing the van. We got to the van park, and found our site and were pleasantly surprised with how much room we had for our setup! We were 300m from the bay and 750m from the beach.
We were on site 18 at Reflections Holiday Park at Jimmy's Beach and it worked very well.
There was plenty of space and we could have parked our car either where you see it in the photo or on the other side of the van.
Jimmy's Beach Van Park has it's share of wildlife including a family of dingoes!
Just gotta make sure that you put your food and knick knacks away at night otherwise you may find the stuff missing in the morning!
After two nights visiting the beaches and the the towns of Hawks Nest and Tea Gardens, we headed off back home.
We packed the van up on Friday evening as it was forecast to rain quite heavily on Saturday. We were so glad we did, as when we woke up Saturday morning, it was already raining.
We disconnected the power, water and waste line, emptied the holding tank, hooked up the van and were out by 8:30am - and luckily so as the skies really opened up an hour later!
After this trip we discovered some other issues that we need to deal with. These include the following:
- Loose cable on the roof that runs from the auxillary solar panel into the van
- USB port on Stephanie's side of the bed is not working properly.
- Possible leak in one of the overhead kitchen cupboards
- We need to get a drop-down awning end as well as one for the side to stop rain and
give us more privacy
- We should silicone a level bubble onto our A-frame for ease of levelling.
Otherwise, all went really well and all issues will be attended to very soon at the first service!
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