Sunday, October 14, 2012

Big Banana at Coffs Harbour

We drove down the Pacific Highway to Coffs Harbour. This road is not much
better than the Bruce Highway north of Gympie and is mainly only a two lane
highway, and in parts windy and narrow. The only difference is that there
we were not stopping all the time with road works - NSW government needs to
spend some money on upgrading this road.

We could remember staying in Coffs Harbour back in 1988 when we had come to
Australia from New Zealand and taken the family to Expo in Brisbane. We had
stayed in Sydney with my brother and sister-in-law and family and had driven
to and from the Gold Coast. Two things stuck out in our memories of Coffs
Harbour - one was obviously the big banana and it was good to see that it
was still a tourist attraction in the town. The second was that we had
stayed in a motel in Coffs Harbour and unbeknown to us at the time, our son
had left his favourite soft toy (Bubblelion was his name!) on the bed when
we left. We had to track this toy down by ringing a number of motels and
eventually it was returned to us in New Zealand by mail. We had one very
happy little boy but he was most disappointed that his favourite toy had
been wrapped up in a parcel and not given a seat on the aeroplane.

We were undecided about putting up the tent on our first night, and
fortunately the Ibis were advertising double rooms with an ensuite at a very
good price - the tent did not come off the trailer and we did not leave a
soft toy on the bed when we left!

While Peter met with a work colleague I window shopped and then we paid a
visit to the Big Banana and also the special sweet shop in the complex - we
all know that Peter loves lollies. Coffs Harbour is a very popular holiday
spot for families. The beach is very popular and there is a long jetty that
has been renovated and is now a popular spot for fishing. There were lots
of fishing boats tied up and the seafood outlets were really busy
particularly as it was around lunch time. After enjoying an hour or so in
the area we hit the Pacific Highway again and continued our journey south.

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