Tenterfield to Evans Head

The drive from Tenterfield to Evans Head crossed over the Great Dividing Range. It was a very windy road but generally dropping down to the coast. Lots of road works along the way repairing significant damage from the constant heavy rain earlier this year, wash-aways, landslides, rock falls, all sorts of damage. I had a charmed drive as in all but one restricted area I got a green light and went straight through.

The first stop was Casino where there was reported to be a painted water tower. The artwork was OK but the tower was on a hill and the only spot I could get to was in a road cutting almost directly below the tower. The painting was on the tank which was on top of a tall concrete structure, I’m glad it was on my way and I didn’t have to drive a long way to see it.

The lines across the tank are power lines, I had to position myself between the poles, very hard to get a good photo. The sun was right behind the tower which made it doubly hard. The detail of the painting was excellent, maybe the colours chosen were not so good. The lady to the right was very well painted.

Evans Head is at the mouth of the Evans river which is a tiny river being only 17 Km long and dropping only 21 metres over its course, but at Evans Head it is quite wide and impressive by Australian standards. There is only one caravan park at Evans Head and it is a massive park, probably over 300 sites and chock-a-block with vans. Not my favourite type of park, but it is right on a beautiful beach and extremely well run and in walking distance to town, not that I did!

When I arrived I took all the tape off the caravan plug and took a photo of how bad the connector was, only the tape held it together, some pins had to be pushed in individually. But it held together for a couple of hundred Ks. The plug on the car was a 7 pin large round one which seems to be obsolete and only one of the many shops I visited had one and then it was their last. The seven pin flat plug seems to be the norm, so I fitted that to the van and made an adaptor to go to the car so all is good. Here is a photo of the broken connector after I took off all the tape and unplugged it.

While at Evans Head I visited Ballina where there is a water tank on top of a hill overlooking the town. The painting is past its prime and maybe the tank was not prepared so well as the paint is peeling in places. The cyclone fence around it made photography a challenge. This photo was taken through a gap in the gate, the other photos have the cyclone in them.

Back to Evans Head, at the hardware shop, where i bought one replacement plug, I asked about a fish and chip shop in town and the lady directed me to the fisherman’s Co-op. What a find, six pieces of breadcrumbed whiting for $12, absolutely delicious. I was lucky as I had just been to the bottle shop and I had a cold six pack of Coopers Pale Ale in the car. So I bought the fish and chips and sat in the nearby park alongside the river and enjoyed a lovely repast. I repeated it today, just as delicious.

The beach at Evans Head runs forever passed Broadbeach National Park, an undeveloped part of the coast.

The two groins in the photo are the outfall of the Evans River. Tomorrow I’m off the Myall Lakes about 500 Km down the coast with one water tower on the way at Crescent head.