Yamba - A holiday experience and more.

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My wife and I have recently returned from 10 days in the north-coast town of Yamba, situated on the mouth of the Clarence River.
This isn't the first time that I have visited the town; my sister has lived there since 2006 and I've stayed there several times over the past six years. But this was the longest stay and also the first for my wife.
There was an ulterior motive to spending a week or two in beautiful Yamba and that was to suss the place out with a view to moving there after 30 years in Canberra.
I fell in love with Yamba on my first visit but as my wife had never been there it was essential that she feel happy with the place too.

Our children have grown up, our grandchildren are growing up (7 and 11 right now) and we are looking at spending the final phase of our lives in a more relaxed environment and without the long cold Canberra winters.
Everything is a compromise, of course, and the trade-off is higher humidity in summer, but an air-conditioned home compensates for that.

The decision has been made and it is now a matter of organising ourselves into a plan of action, starting with a humungous garage sale (or two!) and then listing the house with an agent.
As soon as the sale is confirmed then what we need to keep will be put into storage (until we are settled) and we will head off  north.
That's the plan and as the saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray!

Here is a selection of photographs taken during our holiday. It will be added to as I get the time to upload and edit this entry.

Immediately below is a view of Main Beach and beyond, the two break-walls forming the mouth of the Clarence River.
The lighthouse on the bluff is not the original. It is, however, an operating and important light because Yamba is home to the largest off-shore fishing fleet in New South Wales.

The town centre features many cafes and coffee shops, clothing stores, two general stores, a post office, medical services, estate agents and professional services (solicitors and accountants).
There are also two service stations and a large - and very popular - backpacker's hostel.

A bowling club, golf club, police station and industrial businesses are located away from the town centre and, best news of all, the only fast-food outlet - McDonald's - is about 5 km out of town, on the road coming into Yamba. The council decided that was as close as they could get to local food businesses. Well done, local councillors!

The country around Yamba is a prime sugarcane-producing area and there is a large mill just over the river at Harwood, between Yamba on the coast and Maclean further up-river.

I had never seen the cane being harvested so was pleased to come across a harvesting exercise underway not far from Harwood itself and less than a hundred metres from the bridge over the Clarence River.

Between Grafton and Maclean, on the banks of the Clarence River, sits the little village of Ulmarra, once an important river-port.

Ulmarra featured in the Australian TV series from the 1980s entitled "Fields Of Fire", a story about the sugarcane industry set in the late 1940s.

We visited Ulmarra one morning and enjoyed a drink and lunch at the hotel, which has a nice shady garden at the back, leading to the river bank and which features a glorious Jacaranda tree and several Camphor Laurels.