Evans Head, August 2011

August 4^th, Arrived in Evans Head, mid afternoon and booked into The Silver Sands Holiday Park. We have an ensuite site for 2 weeks. This used to be run by the Council and was the cheapest Caravan Park in NSW that we had come across. It is now owned by The Lands Department and the prices are up! Up! Up! $38/night, without a discount. Val rushed next door to the Bowling Club, while I was setting up, to get the weeks activities and naturally, have a flutter.

August 5^th, After doing our washing in the morning, we walked into Town to find out what had changed. A few shops had closed, including “Farmer Charlie’s” but they have a good sized IGA Supermarket and a very large Soul Patt’s Chemist. We checked out the local Hotel and the RSL before walking back home. This is such a small place that you very rarely have to use the car.

August 6^th, We decided that this was a good place to start doing a daily walk, for exercise. We set off after lunch and walked around the Park and along the Riverfront, which took 45 minutes, so not a bad start. We did see another camper who had been out fishing in his tinnie and his clamp on wheels, were fitted with wheelbarrow wheels. What a great idea, so now my project is to do the same. The small wheels on my clamp on set bury themselves in the sand and make it very difficult to get the boat out of the water on a sandy beach.

August 8^th, We went into Ballina today, I had to visit Centrelink and then we wandered around all the shops at Ballina Fair. I also left Val at the Shopping Centre and went to Bunnings, looking for wheelbarrow wheels. It was a very small Bunnings and I was told it was cheaper to buy a new wheelbarrow than to buy a replacement wheel, at around $60ea. I tried 2 other places for wheels and no luck, so gave up. I priced a piece of toughened black glass, for the stove lid and found the glass was only $40 but $110 for the painting. It’s a minimum charge for the painting process. Looks like I may have to think of something else for the stove lid.

August 9^th, Val’s head cold flared up again, so while she kept out of the cold breeze I put a fishing rod together and went for a fish, up river near the bridge. It was low tide, but I was happy when I hooked a 33cm Bream, which Val enjoyed for dinner.

August 10^th, We walked to the Bowling Club for their meat raffle, dinner at the Chinese restaurant and a flutter. We had an enjoyable meal, but came home empty handed.

August 11^th, I got up early and went fishing, to same spot near the bridge, but couldn’t get a decent bite. I decided to try the sandy side of the river, just opposite, as it looked like an ideal spot for flathead and the tide was running out. I couldn’t find a flathead but was happy to take home a 28cm Bream.

August 13^th, Went fishing again this morning but no luck. I drove down to the Co-Op to check out the wharf area, as a possible fishing spot. It’s alongside their Trawler Boat Harbour and looked promising. I chatted to a local that was in the area and he gave me some tips on fishing the river, but pointed out the best time to fish from the Co-Op wharf was when the fishing boats are working, which isn’t now. I might give it a go anyway one morning, once again I was told not to use a sinker to fish there.

August 15^th, It was high tide at 9am, so off I went, rod in hand to try fishing at the Co-Op wharf. After an hour and no bites, I decided that this was a waste of time, so I packed up and went to the old boat ramp and threw in a line. This was better, I caught a couple of 24cm Bream to throw back. Still not overjoyed, I moved down to the new boat ramp, which has a small floating wharf. Not a lot happening here either, until 12 o’clock and a string of Cruiser sized boats came in and each revved their motors getting up onto their trailers and in the process churned up the water along with the fish waste off the bottom. Fish came from everywhere and the bites were on. Lots of small fish but I caught a 30cm Luderick (on cooked prawn) and a 37cm Bream that gave me an exciting fight and I was feeling WOW when I landed it. I hadn’t heard back from Concept Caravans, I sent them a help email a week ago asking for advice with 2 problems. I haven’t been able to properly fill the water tank in the Van as it just kept blowing back, no matter how slow I ran the hose. 2^nd problem was the flow of mains water through the sink tap was down to less than half. So, after a late lunch I decided to look at the pressure reducing valve at the water connection. It was the easiest thing to get to, so I pulled it apart, flushed it out and re-assembled it. Success, the flow was now back to normal. When I checked the emails to-night there was a reply from Concept, with a suggestion that possibly water had collected in the vent tube and that their Plumber would follow up with suggestions for my 2^nd problem, which I have already fixed.

August 16^th, I received the Concept Plumber’s email and he gave me a list of potential problem areas. I got stuck into the blocked vent tube problem, crawled under the Van, dropped the tank and disconnected the vent tube from the tank. No water in the tube, so I blew through the tube with my 12v tyre pump and something shot out of the vent outlet, like a bullet, and went onto the grass. No chance of finding the foreign object, so re-assembled everything and filled the water tank without any problem, hooray! I should have fixed these problems ages ago, instead of letting it annoy me for the last 6 months.

August 17^th, Packed up, ready to leave in the morning. We walked to the Bowling Club for raffles and a flutter. Val won a meat tray, a $20 voucher for the Fish Co-Op and another $20 voucher for the Club, but because we were leaving in the morning, the Barman simply gave Val $20 cash for her voucher. A great result for the raffles but no luck on the pokies. We will spend the Co-Op voucher as we leave in the morning.