Stroud to Ballina

Along the Pacific Coast Highway, there are tourist drives that provide detours into some very interesting and beautiful places befor joining the highway again. We took one of the tourist drives into the interior. At first, I thought this was a mistake, but I was so wrong. There were several large cattle farms, covering valleys and hills, with spectacular views. The only drawback was that we usually found the scenic lookouts as we were driving by them, and so missed several opportunities for pictures.

We stopped in the village of Stroud for lunch. The village was founded in the early 1800s as part of the wool industry. From Stroud, we continued on to Gloucester where we joined the highway again. A little further down the road, we took another tourist drive that led us to Part Macquarie. The port is named after Governor Macquarie, and was founded in 1821 when three ships with 60 convicts and 40 soldiers of the 48th regiment arrived. It remained a convict town until 1847, although it was opened up to free settlers in 1830.

We stopped in Port Macquarie for the night, and treated ourselves to a good meal in a very nice restaurant along the Hastings River. The restaurant is located where the river meets the ocean. In the distance, we could see cranes gliding along the water, and dolphins playing in the distance.

The next day, Thursday, we started off again. Our first stop was the Smokey Lighthouse in the Hat Head National Park. The point or head on which the lighthouse sits was discovered by Captain Cook, and was called smokey because the aboriginal people in the area kept a fire burning at the point. It is a steep climb up to the top of the hill. So steep that I had to stop twice. But it was definitely worth it. The views are spectacular.

From Smokey Lighthouse, we went to see the Trial Bay Gaol. The jail was originally established with a group of hard-core convicts who were supposed to build a breakwater. However, after several years, the work on the breakwater had not advanced sufficiently, and improvements in transportation overland and by sea meant that it was no longer necessary. The gaol was next used as a detention centre for German Australians during World War 1. It was abandonded after.

Heading north, the landscape changed again. Instead of dairy or beef farming, there were a few rice paddies, palm tree farms and then miles and miles of sugarcane. Huge, flat, lush, green plains as far as the eye could see with mountains, blue and misty in the background.