Last year I was talking with Ma Snook when she mentioned possibly wanting to go to Camp Creative. Snookums groaned and mumbled something about “hippies” but I thought it sounded fun. Basically it’s like a summer camp for families where you take a class for five days. It’s held in Bellingen, which is this cute little artsy town on the northern coast of New South Wales. It’s within driving distance of Casa Snook so we figured we could make a proper holiday of it. I chose the “Funtasia Beads and Wild Wireworks” class and Ma Snook signed up for dollmaking. The fellas declined in favor of fishing. We flew out of Sydney on January 16 and landed in Coffs Harbour an hour later.

Camp started the next day. I lucked out because one of the beading instructors refused to work without air conditioning so we were one of the few classes that had it. There were about twenty of us in there, ranging from 70-year-old grandmas to 13-year-old girls. (There weren’t any men.) The experience was pretty good, overall. I wasn’t fond of a lot of the jewelry myself but I did learn some useful techniques. On the last day everyone puts their stuff out in the student exhibition. This is a shot of our beading table.

Here’s a close-up of my stuff. On the far right are two little beaded bracelets I did using a “Slip and Stitch” pattern. The original design used lots of big chunky beads but I liked the way my little ones looked. Next is my “amulet bag”, which is basically just a necklace with a silly little fringed bag on the end. (I told Rodd I didn’t have any amulet to put in it, so he helpfully offered some of his toenail clippings. Puke!) Above my nametag are my two beaded cuffs. The white one has a butterfly design and the black is a skull with a pink box. To the left of them is my “herringbone spiral” bracelet, which I did using some pretty hematite-looking beads. It’s still a bit chunkier than I like, but it isn’t too bad. Below the nametag are three little peyote stitch rings I made along with my infamous green flower brooch. I don’t really like the brooch.

Ma Snook made two different dolls in her class. She did the pretty gray angel in the middle here. I’d go visit her classroom every day at lunch and just marvel at the things people were coming up with. From what I gather though, dollmaking is a LOT of work. I think I’m too lazy to try it for myself.

Here’s the other doll she made. It’s an old man sitting down looking at a funny bird. Pretty cool, huh?

This is a shot of some more stuff from my beading class. See, that’s what the cuffs were supposed to look like, all strung with pearls and crystals. I’m not a fan of such chunkiness myself but I think this one is pretty.

The felting class made some gorgeous stuff, didn’t they? I love the funny little slippers. Ma Snook and I would stop by there every day to watch them working. Man, felting is tough! It was like eight hours a day of pounding, washing, and rubbing. That’s another one for the list of “Stuff I’d like to try but probably am, in all honesty, too darn lazy to do properly.”

Yes, it’s a naked pregnant doll. I told you those dollmakers were creative!

This was from the “heliographic dyeing” class. I believe the process involved putting things on the fabric (leaves, etc.) and then leaving it in the sun to set. Very pretty.

Some very pretty pastel landscape drawings from one of the art classes…

I don’t actually know what “paper clay” is, but that’s what this castle is made out of. I like it.

The stone carving class were actually working with Hebel blocks, which is a form of aerated concrete that only weighs, like, one-fifth of regular concrete. You can work it with hand tools. Aren’t the Easter Island heads cool?

This is me trying to get arty with the photography.

Whoever made this one labelled it “Goddess of Love.”

Mosaics are pretty.

After camp ended, we spent a few more days being lazy around the house. On our next to last day we decided to take a trip to Dorrigo, which is this amazing town way up on a plateau in the mountains. On the way Pa Snook stopped off in Bowraville, which has a huge colony of fruit bats living in the trees along the river. I took more pictures but you couldn’t see much in them. There were thousands. They chattered and flapped. I just kept going “Oh my God!” every time I turned and there’d be another tree full of them. It was just staggering.

The ascent to Dorrigo was pretty weird. It’s like, one minute you’re obviously climbing a big mountain, and then suddenly you pop out in the town and the mountain’s gone and it’s just like being back at ground level, except you know you’re not. We first went to Dangar Falls, which is right outside the village. This little water dragon was sunning himself right next to our parking space. (Note: As my aversion to animals is well documented, suffice it to say that the Snook took this and all following photographs involving scary-looking animals.)

And here’s Dangar Falls! We’d had a couple rainy days previously so the water was really rushing.

Snookums at the Falls…

Self-portrait of me and the Snook. We were trying to get the waterfall in behind us but it didn’t work so well. I think our facial expressions are funny though.

The soil in Dorrigo was just amazing. It’s this deep dark red that contrasts really nicely with the green fields. It’s not clay though; it’s like volcanic soil and apparently it’s really good to grow stuff in. I took this picture through the car window as we were whizzing down to the National Park.

The Park contains a large area of temperate rainforest. While much of the plateau was logged, the rainforest was protected by the escarpment (basically, the edge of the plateau). At the visitor center you can walk out on the “skywalk” to get a view over the edge and all the way to the ocean.

Beautiful, huh?

Pa and Ma Snook out on the skywalk. She’s hiding from me!

Smooch!

We decided to hike down the escarpment to Crystal Showers Waterfall. Along the way we spotted this big goanna. Eek! Apparently they’re really stupid and when confronted they scramble up the nearest tree. If you’re the only tall thing in the area though… they think you’re the tree. And they have some nasty claws. I stood well back from this one.

The hike was really pretty! I was a little scared of leeches and beasties but a generous application of insect repellent kept them away. Here’s the Snook and I next to a giant old tree.

Looking up into the canopy… Those trees were tall.

My first glimpse of Crystal Showers Falls.

The water came out high above you and emptied into a tiny pool.

The hiking path goes right around behind the waterfall, which is pretty neat. There’s sort of a little cave back there to keep you from getting too wet. That’s me and the Snook back there.

This is my favorite picture from the trip. Pa Snook wedged himself into the back of the cave so we could have the waterfall as a backdrop.

Me and the Snook with Dorrigo’s Pioneer Memorial Log. Apparently that’s the amount of wood it takes to build a cabin or something.

On Sunday we were due to fly back to Sydney, but I wasn’t leaving Coffs Harbour without seeing the Big Banana. It was the very first “big thing” in Australia! Apparently it was put up by an American guy who bought a banana plantation and thought he could turn it into a theme park. It’s an Aussie icon.

I knew my Big Banana experience would not be complete without eating a chocolate-coated frozen banana on a stick, so I talked the Snook into having one with me. Aren’t they obscene? Pretty good though!

So that’s the end. We flew back home to Sydney without a single Russell Crowe sighting. I’m disappointed. But at least I managed my first trip to the country without getting bitten, sunburned, or flooded!