Around Oz the First Time - Chapter 4 - Port Macquarie to Lennox Head

The call was to be on the road by 8.00am and on the road meant meeting at a Puma Service Centre at Kempsey some 40 odd kms away. Up at 6.00am, wander to the amenities (again), grab the phone and head to the breakwater for some sunrise photos. No real joy, the east is clouded excessively and almost ominously. Perhaps today will be driving in the rain as opposed to the wind or both!

Neither in fact, the day turns out fine with simply a little wind from time to time but there are road works – lots of roadworks. It seemed that every time you got up to speed you slowed down again. I am also still fighting with the van wanting to wander all over the road. By Coffs Harbour I call for a stop to investigate and thinking I may have a look at the airbags installed on the rear suspension and jack up the pressure to compensate for the extra weight and see if that helps.

We pull off the road into the Information Centre, stop in a Bus Stop (only to have a bus come up behind us almost immediately. The bus driver is more than helpful and works around us.

To my amazement when I put a tyre gauge on the air inlets one shows the 35kpa we put in them the other only 20. No wonder the van is wandering. Out comes the Tornado air pump. A couple of brief seconds and both are at 35kpa. The result is almost immediate. As soon as we are back on the road, the fight with the van has stopped and it feels like the van of old.

Drivers can be frustrating and certainly us nomads carting vans are not immune. But the instinct of everyone in what might be considered a “normal” vehicle to be ahead of a truck or boat toting vehicle and of course a caravan tower can cause all sorts of issues. Today was no different. There are lots of roadworks happening along the highway on today’s leg and at times we would come to intersections in a long line of traffic and the smallest gap between our vans would be snaffled up from the side roads.

One which caused me to brake was a hippie emblazoned flower power van which then proceeded to stay 20 kms under any speed limit causing not only a large line behind us but an ever-increasing gap between us and our colleagues. This caused me to term myself the Straggler on the UHF which then allowed me to suggest our leader Wayne who wanted to use the handle Silver Fox (way too easy) to reduce himself to Silver Leader. Forbsy, the other van driver is yet to have anything other than just that.

Back to the flower power van. It was emblazoned with flowers as the name suggests but I thought perhaps they should be looking more for weed – it might speed them up. An overtaking lane finally presents itself and I take them and head off in search of the Silver Leader. Earlier we had seen a sign suggesting GPS should not be relied on and in many places, it appeared we were travelling in the forest. Forbsy and Silver Leader are discussing their respective Tom Toms asking them to turn back.

Lennox Head and a refuel ready for tomorrow. The Silver Leader pulls up just shy of the intended servo waiting for the incumbent to finish a refuel when not one but 2 vehicles drive around not only him but Forbsy and us to take the spot. To hell with being polite and letting potential customers out, the Silver Leader blocks the entrance. By the time I get to the entrance a truck is coming out and he gives me a generous wave, having seen what had happened previously to the Silver Leader and I let him out.

Rather than wander the streets we sit down to lunch in our vans. There are plans for tonight as the brother of the Silver Leader lives here and has arranged the venue for dinner, an upmarket pub. Sounds like our type of establishment.

Remember how I said we had been alcohol free day 1, well day 2 might be a little different.

364km today and we settled in early at Lennox Head, had lunch around a table with the others and mused about things to do. The afternoon goes quickly, and we are off to a local for a meal. Yesterday and today some of the discussion has been around the loss of fine dining as the pubs take over the food scene. Here in Lennox Head the Lennox Pub have taken it to a reasonable level of sophistication, especially if the pricing is anything to go by. Their signature dish – a steak is $200 and the prices of the rest of the menu are well above what one might suggest are pub prices.

The menu talks in reasonably understandable terms about the cooking process and the 7 who sit down for dinner order a variety of menu items. I decided on the rack of lamb which given the size of the other meals that graced the table was a little disappointing but only in size. It was very tasty indeed and looking around the other diners they were all enjoying the fare.

The typical “no bill splitting” meant some of us had to cough up cash – but that was not a problem and we left well supped, even to the point of not needing dessert and we wandered back down the street to the caravan park and bed.