On the first day of our trip, we started driving at 5am from Brisbane. We wanted to miss the morning traffic and we got past most of it. Our first stop was in good old Chinderah, a huge service station just south of the Queensland/New South Wales border. There aren’t a lot of photos from the beginning of the trip because we’re pretty familiar with everything between Brisbane City and Macksville on the main highway. We’ve done that trip enough times that the only interesting thing really was the Coffs Harbour Butterfly House and the progress on the construction of the new highway/bypasses (whatever they’re doing to the road these days).

We originally planned to visit all of the Big Things and all of our old houses and schools because of how many of them are but in the end, we decided “why go back to the places that will probably just trigger trauma and explore other places?!” and it was a good idea. So we don’t have many other Big Things and only went to look at one house and school because they were on our way.

When I lived in Ballina the first time, this was still a service centre. It’s now just next door to a Bunnings. But it’s a lot livelier than I remember because of all of the renovations. You used to be able to enter The Big Prawn. We didn’t stay too long in Ballina though. Visited one family member that mattered and then got the f**k out of there because there’s way too much trauma in that town for us. Ballina itself is nice because it’s a coastal town and I’m sure others will have pleasant experiences but we were surrounded by people that made it a few of our worst years during the first and second times we lived there (and even afterwards, they’re like mosquitos. And I’m not just whining about some annoying people, I’m talking bikie gangs, drug dealers, ex-prisoners living downstairs and abusive family members) and so I can’t give an unbiased representation of Ballina.

On the way through Coffs Harbour we stopped at the Butterfly House. The intention was to have lunch there but we arrived too late for that and so instead just walked around and took a look at their insects. There’s an entry fee for the Butterfly House and at first you might suck your teeth at the $18 but I think it was worth it. It’s small but very interesting and fun and you get access to the maze. Because of how we structured our trip (simply: when children are still at school) there were only two or three others there (might also have been because we got there late). It made the experience a lot nicer because it was relatively quiet the entire time.

There were butterflies everywhere (duh). But I couldn’t do justice with my cameras. It was like a soft sprinkle of butterflies. Magical would be the closest expression. The warm (literally, it’s a tropical environment) atmosphere and trickling of water made it very… zen.

Some of the butterflies were easy to photograph because they just sat still but others were fluttering around, feeding and mating so it wasn’t as easy to catch them. We also had to be very careful moving around because some of them just chill on the walkway and one accidental step will crush them.

The photos from my camera, as opposed to my phone, were of poorer quality, there’s a setting I need to change or something so some of these might be potato photos.

When I was little, about ten, I had a butterfly catching kit. I don’t remember if I ever caught anything on my own because I was afraid of hurting them with the net. Someone helped me catch one and put it in a container. I liked to look at them. And then set them free. Keeping things in small spaces doesn’t sit right with me, especially things that run and fly a lot, but being able to look at them up close for a little bit was fun. I’ve never caught anything since then just to look at it. I either try to get a good look from afar, up close or it’s just ‘ah, well’, and so it was really exciting to be in something like the butterfly house where it’s ‘their’ space.

It gets pretty hot in the Butterfly House so if you’re wearing a jumper or jacket, probably take it off before you go in there. They’ve recreated a tropical climate so not only is it warm but it’s humid. Also, (there are heaps of signs but I’m going to say it anyway) don’t touch the bloody butterflies and watch your kids when you’re in there. You wouldn’t like it if someone walked up to your child and punched it, ripping off a lot of their skin off their legs (this is not an accurate comparison but you get the gist), so don’t touch them. There are a lot of animals that have a special coating of something on them that human hands damage. These coats aren’t for show. They don’t just grow them because its trendy or something, they need them. Butterflies have ‘dust’ on their wings that can be rubbed off when humans touch them. Touching them gently only results in a small loss of their ‘scales’ (yeah, they’re tiny reptiles (jk)) and so the whole ‘touch it, it dies’ is basically a myth but it’s probably best you don’t risk damaging a lot of their scales and ripping the membrane of their wing. Anyway, they’ll tell you about it. The rule is basically “they can touch you but you can’t touch them”.

Some of the more vibrant butterflies I imagined as insect candy to animals that eat them. They’re just so bright and pretty. I wanted to see a Monarch (Wanderer) and Ulysses as my priorities but they didn’t have any of those big blue beauties and I didn’t spot any Monarchs.

Some of the photos I wanted to use my finger as a scale but I didn’t want to put them too close to the butterflies and bother them and I’m pretty unco anyway. This guy below was a big boi though. And he sat still so I got a few good photos of him.

I might as well rename this post to ‘The Day we went to the Coffs Harbour Butterfly House’.

The picture above is one of my best and is the reason for the whole ‘insect candy’ thing. I got another good shot of another one.

These ones sat still for me (or were just chilling really). The colours are really striking, especially against the black. I really love how the blue merges with the yellows and green. Colours in harmony together.

There were a lot of these little flower ‘gatherings’ where I couldn’t tell if they were eating or mating because of the way they were behaving. Probably just eating. We saw butterflies mating for real at Werribee. But that’s for another post.

Vibrant little things. I have strong love and fascination for colours in nature. Especially striking colours and so I really enjoy looking at species of animals like butterflies (I mostly just stare at flowers and the shimmering green of trees in the sun). The patchy white on his orange kind of makes it look like he had a sticker pulled off of him.

They have a lot of little trivia or butterfly charts so that you’re not just mindlessly gazing at the butterflies (although that part was fun too).

They had a few insects in another room on the path but I couldn’t get any good photos of them. There was a beetle, a cockroach that was far too large for my comfort and some stick insects. We left the Butterfly House after this to get a move on though.

From there we drove straight to Macksville. I hadn’t been back there since before the bypass was built so the drive was a little different. I spent quite a lot of time at Macksville. About three-and-a-half years, one of the longest times I spent at one town/school. Macksville is still a cute little town and they were planning on sprucing it up now that the highway doesn’t go through it. I don’t really have any pictures because we got in and out (most of the people still there are the ones we didn’t want to run into) but it was mostly as I remember. It very much went “oh, we’ll duck in and out, we won’t see anyone” to “sh*t, sh*t, run, run”.

We went Macksville to Hungry Gate Campground at Hat Head National Park. It’s about a twenty-minute drive from South West Rocks where we intended to have breakfast the next morning.

The campground was a lot nicer than we expected (all of them were really, we kept expecting those grass lots that people camp at but they were actual clearings in the bush, which is what we wanted). There was a kangaroo and her joey just grazing around not far from where we set up camp. There weren’t too many others at the camp either and so it was nice and quiet. Hungry Gate was one of only two campgrounds we had to pay for. It had a long drop composting toilet (where I thought I was going to get raided by plovers at), no water and no electricity but the beach wasn’t far.

Note: we drove in a Toyota Yaris. And so all of the campgrounds are accessible by 2wd, just be careful because “you get a pothole, you get a pothole, everybody gets a pothole!”

I was surprised at how casual and cool they were, especially with the joey there. One of our biggest hopes for the campgrounds is that we would be able to see a lot of the wildlife. It’s not like I’ve never seen Australian animals before but even when you see them a lot, it’s still nice to see them up close in their own territories.

I don’t have any photos of the goanna that was stalking us in the bushes because I was too concerned (scared) about him running at us. He kept curving around us back and forth so we tried to keep an eye on him. He was pretty though. Had pretty distinguished white stripes on him so at first I didn’t think it was a goanna (I know it’s common but these white stripes were really thick) when my brother pointed it out to me.

Hungry Gate Campground had nothing that the other free campsites didn’t have but it was still a nice spot and in a convenient spot for where we needed to be on our timeline. It’s $8 for your vehicle and then $6 per person. It uses an envelope system at the entry board. Like most of the campgrounds, it had a fire ban (you know, because this world is currently on fire) but like the others, you can use your fuel burners (they actually recommend/prefer this). Also like a lot of the other campgrounds, they had bush tracks that you could explore. We didn’t do any of these because of the way we’d planned the trip so I can’t give an opinion but I really want to redo this trip with more long-term stays at these campgrounds to explore them properly. One of the biggest reasons (asides from time) we didn’t explore the campground, however, was we didn’t want to leave our tent out but also didn’t want to risk losing a spot. Some people left their tents pegged but empty but the tent we were using wasn’t ours… and I’m paranoid.

That was Day 1.