The Road Less Travelled

We went a full 24 hours without seeing another soul or a vehicle. Considering we didn’t manage that during our entire journey across the top end and W.A., and that today we were between Armidale and Port Macquarie, both large centres in their own right and only a little over 100km apart it could be surprising. However, I think it shows just how much, as Australians, we really are focussed on the coast. Tonight we are camped at Point Plomer, around 40km south of Kempsey which is pretty much the midpoint between Brisbane and Sydney and we had to walk up and down the campsite, which apparently has 100 sites, to work out whether we could actually fit.

The woman that sold us the Youdale’s permit said we would have the place to ourselves, and we did. In the bottom of the valley next to Kunderang Brook we only had a possum for company overnight under a cool and clear night.

Again the climb out was thankfully uneventful and we explored the southern extents of the Macleay  Gorge system. The country was quite different from further west, rather more reminiscent of Gibraltar Range which is around 100km further north. The rugged country meant that after around 3 hours on the road we were still only 8km from where we had started on our journey out.

The coarse granite soils had changed into finer red/brown and had it been any wetter we would have had some issues on the steeper sections. It did mean however that the countryside was alive with colour. Not quite in W.A. wildflower league, but a fine display for all of that.

As we dropped down out of the high country behind Kempsey, the temperature rose about 10deg. How much of that was just altitude is hard to say, but the southerly change due here shortly will be welcome.

So tonight we find ourselves in Limeburners Creek National Park at the Point Plomer campground. We were attempting to avoid the crowds that we knew would be at Brooms Head a little further north, but as I hinted above, that didn’t happen. Our neighbours on either side are friendly though, and the kids are currently next to a borrowed campfire.

Our camp is right beside the beach access, a remarkable piece of luck. We are at the southern end of a broad sweep of beach which seems completely unspoilt by any kind of development visible from the sand. I can imagine tomorrow will be a very slow day indeed.