Parks a Plenty

The next few days were mostly spent on the road with stops at Blackbutt Reserve in Newcastle, a park boasting walks among gum trees, wild turkeys and peacocks, kangaroos and emus--a truly exciting thing to see all these folks in the wild, just walking around, doing their business. We slept in Taree and Coffs Harbor along the way, each caravan park with its own charms. We finally reached Byron Bay after stops in Solitary Islands Marine Park and Cape Byron Marine Park in Ballina, where the blue green ocean crashed up against gorgeous rocks. It seemed that each beach was more beautiful than the next, pristine and primitive, the way the coast must have looked to the first person who had the honor to lay eyes on it.

A quick note about National Parks and Marine Reserves in OZ: They are everywhere. Seriously. If there are some trees, water falling, coastline, or the possibility to see wildlife or marine life, the Aussies plunk down a few benches and a BBQ and call it a park. It is both and amazing and overwhelming feature of this great country. You pass signs for national parks and reserves more often than you pass rest stops, and while some are well known, others are less traveled and often more beautiful. As a traveler with limited time, you wish you could stop at each and every one, but alas fuel is too expensive and a life time may still be too short to take in all the beauty that Australia has to offer. And we have not even left the east coast yet!

To see photos of Newcastle, Taree, Port Macquarie & Coffs Harbor, please click me