Yamba

Yamba is a seaside town in New South Wales that is also situated at the mouth of the Clarence River.  It's a really beautiful spot and hubby and I spent the last night of our honeymoon here over 14 years ago.

Instead of dusting off the camper trailer and heading to one of the dams or up the beach to Double Island Point like we have in the past, we decided to splurge a bit and do something a bit different.  

Yamba is where we eventually decided on because it's not too far from Grafton so we could visit my father in law (who ended up going away so we didn't get to see him), there are a number of interesting places to explore and it had a couple of really good kid friendly places to stay.  We were also lucky enough to book accommodation in the school holidays at the last minute so it ticked the boxes.

We ended up staying at the Blue Dolphin Resort which was fabulous although took a little getting used to for us as we usually try and camp where there aren't too many people.  The place was packed with caravans, tents, camper trailers and cabins (sorry.. villas) like we stayed in.

It's also situated on the shore of an offshoot of the Clarence River and had its own private boat ramp and jetty.  I loved going for walks down to the water to watch the birds and boats coming and going.  Of a morning the trawlers would come back in with their overnight haul and we did get to sample some really nice freshly caught fish one night.

Being school holidays the place was packed.  We were hoping to get a cabin on the outer edges of the resort but unfortunately ended up smack bang in the middle of it and right outside the noisiest place for the kids to play.

That was the jumping pillow and I took the below photo from my seat on our little verandah.  It wasn't too bad though as they deflated it at dusk and didn't inflate it again until 9am and watching the kids play and have fun on it was a joy.

Our kids had plenty of fun on it too and when the noise got a bit much for them we shut the windows and doors and let them watch a movie until they could cope with the excess stimulation again.

The number one place at the resort for the kids was the pool.  Perhaps I should say pools plural as there were three of them as well as a bit of a water park.  The one in the photo below was the heated pool and the most popular because the weather has still been a little cool.

One of the other pools had a couple of waterslides which were a hit with the kids but they only went on them for a short amount of time because the water was pretty cold.  They would spend 10 to 15 minutes on the slides then go back over to the heated pool to warm up a bit.

So what did I do while the kids swam and played in the water, sometimes for 3 hours at a time.  I crocheted of course.  I had my school holiday shoulder bag project with me and hooked away very happily in my little spot.

As we ended up spending most of our time at the resort because the kids were enjoying it so much I ended up finishing the bag on our last afternoon there.  I still have to add eyelets and the rope handles to it and once I've done that I'll show you the finished product.

Spending so much time poolside and in the pool worked up an appetite and even though we were self catering in our little villa, we did splurge on chips and wedges too.  

We mainly got these for the novelty factor that you order at the café and they deliver it to you wherever you are poolside!  I'm sure people do this all the time but it was a completely new experience for us as so we just had to have a snack.  The kids loved it.

They also had pedal go karts that the kids could zoom around the place in.  We hired them one afternoon for awhile and the kids had a great time tearing up the tarmac.

We didn't stay at the resort the whole time we were there otherwise there would have been no point driving to Yamba at all as we could have stayed in a place like it a bit closer to home.

There was plenty of grumbling from the kids (one in particular) when we told them we were off to do some exploring.  We were usually only gone for about 2 hours each day on our little jaunts which was enough to see some of the area in spits and spurts.

The first stop was the town of Yamba itself and the lighthouse.

We parked down at Turners Beach which is next to the mouth of the Clarence River and at the base of the lighthouse.

There were plenty of rock formations to clamber over and explore and to just enjoy the beauty of the ocean.

We climbed from the carpark up to the lighthouse and then went back down again.  We really did have lovely weather when we were there although it was pretty windy so I wasn't getting too close to the edge of the rocks.

Another one of our jaunts took us out to Angourie which is more of a residential area and the start of a 65 kilometre walk through the Yuraygir National Park. You can do a shorter 10 kilometre walk on the Angourie Walking Track as well which looked lovely but we were happy exploring the headland and beach on this trip.

It was a lovely view down onto the Angourie Surfing Reserve from the headland and we were really lucky to arrive just when a whale was breaching just offshore.

I wasn't quick enough to snap it when it was right out of the water but in the below photo you'll see a white wave right in the middle of the picture.  That's the splash of the whale which was pretty exciting, especially since it was the first time the kids had ever seen one not on tv or in a book.

We walked down to the beach and did some exploring of the headland and over the beach on the other side which was beautiful and had very few people there which was a bonus.

We really loved our trip away and already it feels like a bit of a dream, especially as we're back into the school routine again for term 4 of the school year.

A big thank you to my mother in law who had a holiday of her own at our place and looked after Patch for us so we could go away.

I hope you're all having a wonderful week.

xx Susan