(9/3/07) Pt 157 Border Ranges NP, Sheepstation Campground (Pictures)

Cheryl drove the whole way from Bina Burra to Border Ranges and I used an old National Park book to navigate. I directed her up a steep winding gravel road an hour later than we had hoped to arrive. From there another road turned into the National Park. It was even narrower. We saw red birds with blue wings and tails in the trees on the road and heard a sharp squeak that we suspected might be our brakes. We emerged from some new citrus orchards and stump ranches to the park entrance where the road improved and found Sheep Station Campground, new since my book was printed, and offering us a place for the night. The camp was loud with the calls of Bellbirds, whose sound we thought at first might be our brakes. Soon after we popped up the A-van, it started to rain.

Shortly after we arrived, a single father (apparently) arrived with three small children, more or less took over the common kitchen area and set up a huge tent in front of it. He actually did a good job with the kids and told us the Bellbirds were collected here because of aggressive logging and were a sign of ecological degradation. The red and blue birds were Crimson Rosellas.

The Bellbirds woke us early and we left the A-Van trailer with the makings for our usual tropical fruit breakfast and drove further into the park. On the way Cheryl checked the cell phone and found a voice mail message waiting which we could not retrieve. We drove from picnic area to picnic area hoping for a good signal and even when we eventually found one, manual-in-hand, we could not figure out the phone. Finally we called the Genos but could only leave a message. There were some good lookouts, particularly one called “The Pinnacle”. I managed to loose most of my pictures from there, except one of another leech that had crawled onto Cheryl and she quickly flicked onto the wooden platform we were standing on at the time. Back in camp we got to see a 3 foot long monitor lizard called a goanna, amble through camp looking for carrion.

We made our way out on a much better road thanks to maps in the park and wound through some more beautiful countryside to the town of Nimbin, famous as a center for back-to-the-land hippies, and now a tourist trap in full Saturday gawking mode. We did find some food for camping, a sealable bucket to do on-the-road laundry and an Internet connection that didn’t offer Wi-Fi. We didn’t stay to eat lunch and pushed on toward Lismore, a larger town where we pulled into a park for lunch in time for a Cricket match. It was good to eat and rest, but we couldn’t figure out Cricket. We picked up some beer at a drive through “bottle shop” – these are somewhat like liquor stores since there is no alcohol in the super markets. They are open long hours and have turned out to be a good place to ask directions. A guy there offered to drive and lead us through town to the road toward Woodburn, and leave us off at a station that sold LPG (Auto Gas vs petrol). The trip from there was smooth till we reached the Gap road going into Bundjalung NP, our first stop by the ocean. The road in was 17 km of very bad washboard. The campsites were minimal and the access to the beach limited. There was a crowd for the weekend.

In the morning we got up for the sunrise over the Pacific Ocean and left fairly early heading for a campground with amenities at Red Rock, just south of Yuraygir NP.