Armidale

 3 - 5 March 2025

Having studied the weather forecasts associated with Cyclone Alfred we felt the best thing to do was to head inland. We chose Armidale because there wasn't much rain to come and it would allow us to return to the coast easily if the weather system petered out. We drove towards Port Macquarie - another spot we would have like to stay at - and then headed up into the hills through Wauchope and Walcha and on to the New England Tableland.

We stopped in Walcha to book ahead in Armidale and saw that the forecast had changed and that there was the possibility of some serious rain there too. We'd just have to deal with it when it happened. We arrived at the caravan park and were able to select our own site. We chose one adjacent to amentities and camp kitchen. We spent some time trying to locate a repairer for the broken zip, and in desperation Mick phoned Janke, in Victoria, who replaced the zip for us last time. As luck would have it, her former boss is located near Coffs Harbour. She made contact with him and we arranged to take the trailer down to him on Wednesday morning so he could replace the slider. 

There was a bit of rain in the evening and also through the night, and the new forecast had us very nervous about driving down the Waterfall Way the next day. We called Ray and arranged to go down straight away so packed up and headed off for the 2½ hour drive.

Limited visibility on Waterfall Way

There was quite a bit of rain on the way and we resigned ourselves to having to deal with wet canvas if it meant we could use the zip again. We arrived at Ray's around 1:00pm and set up the trailer while the rain held off. We didn't set up the awning but held it up when the rain started again, while Ray worked on replacing the slider. Once the job was done we packed up ready to head off back up the hill to Armidale.

Before we had left in the morning we had asked about booking into a cabin on our return as we knew we  would be worn out, and it could be quite late. Before heading back we called to confirm that we would like the cabin, and were very glad we did. We arrived back in Armidale at around 5:00pm after a  huge day and relaxed for the night without worrying about wind, rain or wet canvas.

Once again we consulted the BoM before deciding that we needed to continue our journey inland, perhaps to Goondiwindi. The cyclone was looking like it might actually cross the coast in South East Queensland, a very rare occurrence, and that would cause flooding on the New South Wales north coast. Reluctantly, we had to abandon our plans to spend time in that part of the country.