Hell, then Hosanna!

Bird of the Day:  White-headed pigeon.  Flock bird was Cattle Egret, once we got to the coastal plains.  Australian White Ibis was more widely evident, but in lower numbers.

Plant of the Day:  Bamboo beside the River at Lismore.

Scene of the Day;  A hillside/mountain as we dropped down into the Clarence Valley.  Anything that caught my attention at that point had to be pretty spectacular.

Art of the day:  Les Miserables reference in graffiti on bridge in Lismore

Typically Australian thing of the day:  Astonishing helpfulness of folk in Lismore in sorting out our problems.  Well done those guys. (Can something 'astonishing' also be typical?)

Maximum Temperature  19 Minimum temperature 5

Distance travelled  with camper 250 without camper 10

The post for the previous day concluded with what I thought at the time were a couple of disasters.  It turned out that they were just warning shots for the start of this day.

We packed up quite efficiently and headed off to do the historic walk.  A few odd noises were coming from the camper direction so I went to look when we stopped 2km down the road.  We had forgotten to raise the jockey wheel, which was now doing an impression of a banana.  Worse, the attachment mechanism had got very stressed and was not keen on undoing.

Several applications of the tool of tools (Dagenham screwdriver - aka in Slovakia as a kladhivo, or in Canberra as a hammer) solved the worst of the crucial problem of removing the buggered item.  So, seek advice from Cub on how to overcome the longer term problem of fixing the jockey wheel.  Basically find a caravan centre.  Back to the visitor centre to find out where one is: they sent me to an automotive supplies shop.  They couldn't help and said the nearest one was probably Lismore, 168kms away!

So we turned on my internet hotspot ( a brilliant device) and Frances iPad (ditto) and found there were 3 such places in Lismore so off we went.

I had been looking forward to the drive to Casino as it twisted through the National Parks in the ranges.  Sorry, not today, pedal to metal to the extent that Tammy's stomach could handle.

On getting to Lismore we quickly noticed the first dealer.  He was as helpful as he could be, selling us a new jockey wheel and throwing in a replacement bracket.  However he couldn't do anything about the bracket other than suggesting that if welding was needed we needed to remove the camper's battery and might have trouble with melting the wiring that runs through the channel to which the bracket was attached.  He then spoke to a metal fabricator to see if something could be done to clean up the thread.

Off we went to the fabricator.  He looked and decided that it was well stuffed and he couldn't fix so sent us round the corner to AWE Engineering to fit a helicoil.  They agreed to do what they could and suggested we dropped back in a couple of hours.

So we went for a walk round Lismore.  The tourist centre wasn't really good:  Frances went in to get some pamphlets and was eventually served by a sweet young thing (SYT).  We agreed that I would take Tammy for a walk while Frances went to the Regional Art Gallery.  My first stop was the War Memorial.

This is the Boer War version, which I found interesting because of the uniform.

I then walked along the riverbank looking for a dunny.  Diuretic medecine does have disadvantages but I eventually found a large clump of very large and colourful bamboo which provided the privacy I needed!

The bridge over the eastward flowing Wilson's River was well endowed with graffiti, including a nice reference to Les Miserables.

Once past the bridge the track disappeared, but this shot does give an impression of the lushness of the vegetation.

It emerged that the Regional Gallery was closed for a re-hang but Frances found me, and we walked back to the Visitors Centre where I was delegated to go and seek advice from the SYT about the better way to get to Muwillumbah.  The choices were via Nimbin or Bangalow.  SYT said she'd go via Nimbin, because she lived near there.  Hmmm.  We found a bakery and had lunch, by which time we hoped that the camper would be ready.

Yep it was.  They had even found that when the fundi ran a tap through the socket it cleaned out some crud and the helicoil wasn't needed.  So the saviours of our trip charged us a whole $30 for their trouble.  They are magnificent.  I then asked them which way to go: no hesitation "go via Bangalow".

So we did.  It turned out this took us towards Murwillumbah very close to the Hosanna farmstay where we were booked in, and they had signs off the Old Pacific Highway.  Good stuff.

Somehow the people there thought we wanted an unpowered site but we sorted that out.  They had a camp dog  - a huge Great Dane - which wanted to meet Tammy so was standing up with its paws on our car.  Not good but we'll see how it pans out.  We found our site and connected up everything just before a shower came in.

Many birds around, and few other campers so it should be a good place.

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