5-10 January, 2014
After we left Boambee Bay, we made the trek back to Port Macquarie to pick up the camper, before continuing down to the Big 4 Karuah Jetty Holiday Park. For those who don’t know, the Pacific Highway used to run right through the middle of Karuah. This was bypassed a number of years ago now, making Karuah a bit of a forgotten town. I like the idea of putting some money back into these types of communities, so it was with this in mind that we decided to stay here – despite being a little bit over ‘Big 4 style’ camping.
Lots of family hanging out and chilling together. Great fun.
We found our site and decided to drive into our site, so that the annex would be facing the road and we could see the kids playground. We had maneuvered into position when an employee came and told us – somewhat rudely – that we had to turn around and have the drawbar facing the road.
Pardon me?
According to the brains trust this was a legal requirement that all parks need to enforce.
Come again?! What is it with Big 4 employees?!!
Plenty of free sites to run around in.
ANYWAY, we kept our thoughts to ourselves and complied with their requests. (Incidentally we witnessed the same conversation happen a number of times over the duration of our stay, met with the same quizzical response each time.) Mental note – time to stay away from Big 4 for a while and do some real camping!
Regardless, we had a nice relaxing time here. The kids met some new friends who they spent quite a bit of time with, playing, riding bikes, hanging out.
We did a couple of day trips from here. On Tuesday we went into the Hunter Valley to do a little wine tasting, and also visited the chocolate factory to keep the kids amused!
Spot the Cow… on our day trip to the Hunter
On Wednesday we did a day trip up to Gloucester to see Aunty Shaz and her family. We haven’t visited Malcolm and Gloria for a few years, so it was great to catch up with them and also to see Shelly too.
Thursday was a quiet day, we had a family bike ride and then I managed to get out for an explore later in the afternoon. We did a little packing in the evening as we were leaving on Friday. We left at about 10 in the morning, and, as we were heading to Dave and Kate’s place for a few nights, decided to spend another day in the Hunter Valley on the way to their place.
Treats on a bike ride
I found the hall of beer at the Hunter Valley Gardens, and purchased a selection for Dave and I to work our way through later that evening.
We were now well and truly relaxed after our 5 nights here – and ready to move on as well!
Lucas still hasn’t worked out that sleeping on a bed is comfortable…
Total now 137 nights.