The Big Lap - Bateau Bay to Maclean

We had a leisurely start today, enjoying the sunrise over the ocean, followed by breakfast at the surf club. Rather pleasant, but not how we will start most of our days.

Our campsite had bush behind us and the ocean out the front. Very hard to take.  We think we may just come back to this spot with the caravan for a long weekend, as it is rather lovely. 

Today was a fairly brain dead day travelling up the Pacific Highway. We both came this way a fair bit as kids but haven't been on some of it for nearly twenty years. Boy has it changed. The Hexham Bridge always was a sign that you are getting towards the coast. 

We enjoyed seeing all the different cloud formations as we rode along. 

We had a nice break at Buladelah for coffee and a ginger nut. Ginger nuts are great, as they always travel well, especially those from NSW. Did you know that Arnotts ginger nuts are different in each state, despite all being made at the one factory. We always try to get some wherever we go. 

We had fun looking for the really tall mid north coast gum trees, but it was hard to get a decent photo. There was quite a bit of roadworks along the way but the traffic flowed really well, with only one close call that we saw all day. We had a quick bite for lunch, but other than that kept travelling. 

I was surprised that I managed to get a decent photo of the Big Banana as we went past. 

By now time was marching on and we still had a bit of a way to go till we reached our destination for the night. 

We do not intend to finish our day this late again, but it worked today. We ate out at the pub, as we were too late to organise ourselves to go to the supermarket. 

We ended up doing five hundred and eighty four kms for the day, which wasn't bad considering we didn't start till well after nine in the morning and we only sit on around 90 kmh.

Hopefully we will get into our regular routine tomorrow and get on the road by eight. We should be well and truly in Queensland by tomorrow night, but we don't know where. That's the fun of it.