Today was a very very flat day.  Grafton is 6m above sea level and we ended up in Yamba by the sea.  We cycled out of Grafton and we were almost instantly in the countryside.  We cycled along fantastic narrow roads that followed the slow moving Clarence River.  The was no traffic and it was flat and quiet cycling past dairy farms, then sugar cane and macadamia farms.  The river became wider and slower and split into many channels with low islands with lots of birdlife.  At some point along here we past 2000km on our journey north.

We got to the town of Lawrence and caught the free ferry across an arm of the river to Woodford Island which is the largest inland island in the Southern Hemisphere.  It was flat.  We arrived at Maclean, a nice old town where we sat and had some lunch with a view of the river.  The road got a lot busier and the verge disappeared for the last part of today’s ride between Maclean and Yamba.

The reason we are cycling to Yamba is because Dave and Paula and kids are driving down from Brisbane for a long weekend with us.  Just as we entered Yamba they arrived and we said hellos on the side of the road.  It must have been nice for them to see us cycling.  We all went to the Blue Dolphin Holiday Park where we camped and they had a cabin.  The park was a kids extravaganza with two pools, multiple play grounds, a jumping cushion (In NZ we call them bouncy pillows) plus loads of kids on school holidays.

We’ll be spending the next few days here before progressing north.

Highlight of today:  Cycling along quiet roads next to the river.

Sugar Cane

Quiet country roads

On a short ferry ride.