Muddling to Mullumbimby

I had saved Yamba's best for last.  The biggest oppy on town is the Wellspring Church one, well out of the centre of town and lurking behind the Coles shopping complex.  It has two separate sections, and Jo immediately dived into the obvious one. I pointed out the other door and suggested to Jan that it might be a good place to look for a skateboard. She found eight!

I stumbled across a necklace thingy that would be perfect for my final outfit, but can't remember what else we bought.  I need to take better notes. In the second section I found possibly the quirkiest item of the trip, a bottle of hermit crab salt. Did you know that hermit crabs need to bathe in salt water regularly? You do now.

Heading back towards the highway, I took the wrong exit and we ended up on the old Harwood bridge across the Clarence.  This was becoming a bit of the habit.  Still it added a bit of excitement to the trip. The section from there back north to Ballina is the most tedious part of the trip. Now that the op shop at Woodburn has been destroyed by flooding, there is no reason to stop anywhere. The new bridge over the Richmond River has no character, unlike the old one at Wardell. Poor Wardell was already almost a ghost town before they built the new road, and now the transformation is complete. Broadwater is much the same, and there used to be a great cafe there in an old church.

We hit the oppies of Ballina again, this time starting at the Helicopter Shop, which supposedly stays open till 3pm. Except on Fridays, when it closes at 2.30. The internet does not know this. Of the three Helicopter Shops we tried to visit, we only managed to get inside one.

Lifeline and Salvos stay open later, so we managed to visit both, although there wasn't a lot to buy, and prices were high.  We found a game of Boganology (not in Bogangar!), and Jo just had to have that, although we never did get to try it out. Once again, we didn't visit all the op shops of Ballina, as I forgot both the ADRA one and the NRAS one. Mea culpa.  Next stop Mullumbimby.  I had intended a slight detour into Bangalow to visit the lovely church op shop there, but I must have been mad to think we could get there before they closed at 2.30.

Our digs for the night were to be the Mullum Motel.  After our highway drive, we found it and squeezed down the narrow driveway, parking next to the bins, as there was no place to stop while you booked in.  The sign on the 'office' door said the key had to be picked up from the Middle Pub.  Off we went again, down a one-way lane, round the block, found a park in the busy main street, and I located the key person.  He said parking back at the motel was first come, first served.  We nabbed the second-last park, lugged all our stuff upstairs and collapsed.

At this point, loud noise blasted in from next door. It turned out to be the band at the Services Club practising for their performance that night, with the door open.  They actually sounded pretty good, but there was no nanna nap for us.  We could have wandered up to the Vinnies and the Anglican shops, but we thought we'd leave them till the morning.

Dinner at the Middle Pub was the plan, but as we rounded the corner we could see a seething mass of people on the upstairs verandah, and hear a lot of very loud music, so went to the Services Club instead.  We didn't fancy being onsite when the verandah collapsed. The Nepalese goat curry at the club was excellent, as it should be considering all the kitchen staff are Nepalese.  

Jo then decided she wanted to go to the concert, despite our freebie preview. Jan and I left her to it.  From our room, we heard it all anyway, and it didn't cost us $20.  Jojo Smith turns out to be a bit of a local legend. She has played many Byron Bluesfests, been a backing singer for Renee Geyer among others, and still has a big following.

Jan was up for a stroll in the morning, so we tried a bit of geocaching at the old railway station.  Sadly, someone set it on fire a few years ago, and we think someone else has pinched the cache.  Next stop was the banks of the Brunswick River and a general insight into the culture of Mullum. These was a man sitting right beside the road meditating.  We peered into the window of the Anglican, and discovered it doesn't open on Saturdays; checked out Vinnies and decided it looked more like a boutique than an op shop, so we wouldn't bother.  We did see some pretty funky window decorations in another shop though.

At 8.31, we were at the Uniting Church oppy, which opens at 8.30 on Saturdays only. I was still in front in the bingo comp because Jan and Jo were missing street directories and we all needed How To Host a Murder.  Mullumbimby did not help any of us.

We tried to find Jan's parents' old home at Myocum on our way to Brunswick Heads, but the area had changed so much that nothing looked familiar.