Red Elephants are in Yamba

Red Elephants are in Yamba!!  We where heading for Ballina when we saw the turn of for Yamba.  Our good friends from Canberra where visiting their family in Yamba and had told us to call in.  So we did!!  The kids have just had a lovely time together.  The adults have had 2 hot beverages and an alcoholic one some nibbles, dinner and a chat.  What could be better.  Thank you to our friends and their family for sharing their house and feeding us this afternoon.  You know we think the world of you.

So we have decided to break the itinerary and stay in Yamba for 2 nights.  Tomorrow will be a day of rest and hanging out and I guess I better do a load of washing.

Since our last post we visited the Butterfly House just south of Coffs Harbour.  What lovely people and what beautiful butterflies they have.  Did you know that butterflies like warm humid conditions.  The temperature inside their house was 35'c.  Being Canberran's straight from our winter this was quiet a shock.  We quickly stripped of our jackets and jumpers but where still HOT.  Pete embraced his inner butterfly while the kids an I escaped the hot humid conditions and checked out the bug house and then got lost in the maze.  Some of us that are small enough to fit under maze fences got to the centre of the maze before their mother who does not believe in the drop and roll under the fence method of getting to the Maze centre.

We then decided we would get some hot chips for lunch and sit and eat them by the beach at Urunga.  My advice to you is.  Do not go looking for hot chips on a sunday at 1.30pm in a small coastal town as you maybe disappointed and you may have to wait 45 minutes for the chips to be cooked.  By witch time everyone is starving and over it.

The Bears where very excited to be visiting the Honey Place.  They promised the man at the front desk that they would be on their best behaviour and would not dip their paws in any honey pots.  They did get to see bees in  beehive and see and have a spin of the honey spinner thingy.  We all had a taste of the different honeys and agreed that the Coffs Flora Honey tasted the best.

So we packed up and said good bye to Bellinger River this morning only to discover that our back blinker was on the blink.  Not to worry  two lovely caravan park gentlemen came to our rescue one with his little wooden toolbox with a rope pull lid that looked somewhat like the pencil boxes you make in woodwork in high school and the other gentle man came to the rescue with a butter knife!    You will be pleased to know that Pete now knows how to fix a blinker on the blink all by himself now.

The BIG BANANA  what visit to Coffs is not complete without going to the Big Banana.  The kids now know what a Banana tree looks like how they are harvested and packed and that frozen banana's covered in chocolate is very yum.  My question to you is why is a place where they grow apples and oranges called an orchard and place where banana's are grown called a plantation?

I prefer chocolate but the rest of the red elephants like any thing sweet and especially lollies.  They where in heaven today when we visited the Lolly shop at the Big Banana and they saw how Rock Lollies are made and how the patterns are put in the lollies.

So  all in all we have gone banana's and have had a very sweet 48 hours.