Hipcamping @ Dungarubba

After my pitstop in Maclean to do laundry and watch the next installment of Australian Survivor with my mate Michael, I was headed north. My first stop was Ballina on the coast to return a bunch of things I purchased at Bunnings (like Home Deport in the USA) that I wasn't using and right next to Bunnings is The Big Prawn! I'm having a lot of fun with all of the "Big" things around Australia and seek them out along the way.

I also had to come through Ballina to pick up a parcel from an Amazon locker (supplies to make good coffee!) and then took time to explore the Aboriginal Cultural Ways Coastal Walk located in Ballina (click the link to read more about this walk). I enjoy learning more about aboriginal culture and stories as I travel around Australia and I like how areas and sites are being renamed from European place names back to Aboriginal place names (EX: Fraser Island back to K'Gari). Not everyone loves these changes and it sounds like more of an effort could be made to "bring people along" on these changes but I am enjoying seeing this...And the walk was along a shared path so I was able to ride my bike along the path and check out the stories and signage as well as one of those 10,000 pristine, clean, empty beaches my mate Chris likes to talk about!

I was hungry after this and decided I was ready for more fish and chips...This is grilled barramundi...Interestingly, it's more expensive to purchase the fish grilled vs. fried which doesn't make sense to me but there you go...

And then I was off in search of the place I was spending the night - my first Hipcamp stay - in Dungarubba. This area of NSW (New South Wales) had the wettest March in 140 years! So it was wet and there were a LOT of mozzies (mosquitos)! On the way, I passed through an area where koalas are active and often spotted on the roads...I like how much signage there is and effort to keep the koalas (and kangaroos and other critters too!) safe!

I was their only camper for my two night stay and despite my best efforts, the mozzies won in the end! I did get a campfire going for about 1/2 an hour but the wood was moist and all of my "anti-mozzie" tools just couldn't compete so I surrendered and escaped back into Vinnie for the rest of the evening...The forecast for the next day looked like the rain would hold off until evening so I decided to go check out the Crystal Castle - see my next blog entry for that story!