Tuesday April 29, 2014

We had a lovely ride to South West Rocks this morning.  We left Adam and Colette at about 10:00 and arrived in South West Rocks at around 12:30.

After we left Kempsey we followed the river and floodplain to South West Rocks. We were absolutely amazed at the amount of houses and farms that were for sale along this 25 km stretch of road.  It almost seemed as if every other house or farm was for sale.  Not sure why there were so many for sale.

It made a change to follow a river and see farmland again as opposed to being amongst the trees and bushland.

We had a bit of a headwind and took it in turns, to be in front. For a change Ralf didn’t have the legs today.  He said he was feeling a little run down and couldn’t get the rhythm.

South West Rocks is a small beach town with a really nice Information Centre in an historic maritime building with a museum attached.  We checked out one campsite in the Town but it was too expensive and didn’t have any facilities (no kitchen at all).  We headed out to the Big 4 towards Trial Bay, which was equally as expensive, but as usual with the Big 4s it had a lot of facilities and a kitchen, with BBQs.   It didn\’t have a hot plate, but it did have a toaster and a kettle.

We were set up by 2:00 and took a walk to Trial Bay Gaol and up to the German Monument.  The German monument was built for the German civilians that died at the gaol during the first world war.

The Gaol was used as a gaol in the early 1900’s and then in 1914 as an internment camp for german civilians who deemed “enemies of the state”.  It was really well laid out and very interesting.

The camp site was a really nice bush-site which was very quiet, there were a few mossies around because we were in a wetland area.  We were in bed early (8:00 pm) and asleep by 8:30pm!