Coffs Harbour to Newcastle -7th April 2023

Coffs Harbour to Newcastle -7th April 2023

We both slept well but woke early ready for another day’s drive. It is exciting to be able to see the kids again. We are sure we will notice that they have grown again.

The news had said we might be in for a wet day today, so we had breakfast, packed up and were agin on the road at just after 7:00am on our way south.

We found a petrol station to top up with fuel. Our first stop was Port Macquarie. This is somewhere neither of us has been to before. We have decided we would like to spend some more time here and will definitely look at having a holiday here.

A bit further south we stopped at another roadside rest area for sandwiches and a cuppa

We had a good run, with not too much rain at all. and arrived at our accomodation at 3:00pm

We are here for the next 3 nights, so have unpacked and are waiting for the family to come over for dinner.

Caloundra to Coffs Harbour – 6th April 2023

Caloundra to Coffs Harbour – 6th April 2023

We woke up at our usual 5:30am, had breakfast and were on the road just after 7:00

Our destination today is the Charlesworth Bay Beach Resort in Coffs Harbour. We have approx 475kms travel I have booked a standard studio room as it is just a one night quick stopover.

We had a really good run south with quite light traffic most of the way. We only had some stop start traffic on the southern end of the Gold Coast.

I planned out first stop at a bakery I found just south of the Gold Coast. The plan was to buy a loaf of fresh bakery bread and perhaps something to eat and have a cup of tea overlooking the river.

We arrived in Chinderah at around 9:30, found the bakery and a parking spot. It looked very busy and when we got the shop itself, we saw that there was no bread left at all ☹️ and the pastry and cake cases were very empty. It certainly is a popular place. We decided to just have a cuppa by the river and keep heading south. We had to drive further up the road to turn around and in doing so, we found a great picnic spot.

We had a lovely 20 minutes or so before heading south again. A few minutes later, we needed a rest stop and exited the highway thinking we might have a short drive to find a service station. And it turned out, there was service station right off the exit. I realised that this particular service station was a Coles Express store and we were able to pick up some milk for our next day.

The next stop was to be Ballina, I wanted to find a bakery for bread to make sandwiches for lunch. A drive up the main street and we duly found a Brumby’s bakery and a loaf of nice fresh bread. A look at the map showed a park not far away, so we stopped and had our sandwiches and a cuppa

Back on the road heading south our next stop was a rest stop of the side of the highway. There are many of these rest areas on the Pacific Hwy and they were all being well used.

We reached our destination around 2:00pm, checked in and settled in for a quiet night before turning in early, ready for another 400km drive tomorrow.

Easter Road Trip -5th April 2023

Easter Road Trip -5th April 2023

Finally, our holiday plans are coming back to some sort of normality post CoVid.

This year we are travelling south the Newcastle to visit the grandkids and then to Hobart to look at a house we are considering.

If you have followed my blog, you may remember we have bought a block of land overlooking the Derwent River in Tranmere. We have made the decision to sell that block and purchase a house on a slightly less steep block to cater better for M.

We have an offer on the block and are waiting for it to go unconditional. In the meantime, we have found a gorgeous house that we want to view before we sign our lives away 🙂

The decision to fly to Hobart came at the last minute, after we had already booked our roadtrip south. Rather than coming all the way back home from Newcastle, we are driving to Brisbane Airport and flying to Hobart.

The itinerary looks like this…

Thursday 6th Accom Coffs Harbour Charlesworth Bay Beach Resort
Friday 7th Newcastle The Brighton Toronto
Saturday 8th
Sunday 9th
Monday 10th Glen Innes Glen Innes Motel
Tuesday 11th Northgate Comfort Inn Toombul Road
Wednesday 12th Parking Airport Park’n’Fly
Flights BNE>HBT Virgin
Car East Coast Corolla
Accom Howrah Shoreline Hotel
Thursday 13th
Friday 14th
Saturday 15th
Sunday 16th Flights HBT> BNE Virgin

We have packed the car and are ready to head off bright and early in the morning.