Coopernook State Forest weekend trip

Old Tony

I'm currently at Coopernook Forest and it's nice and quiet. Gently sloping ground, there's a flushing toilet and you're allowed to have a campfire. It's state forests area so you should be able to find firewood nearby (I haven't looked).

Turn off to Coopernook, get onto Bangalow Rd and just follow it. There's what looks like a turn-off - it's actually Bangalow Rd making a turn, and Omara Rd heading straight (and in the wrong direction).

G,day Tony,

Looks like a top spot! When would you like to have a weekend here mate? Took the liberty to use your info to start the possible Coopernook weekend trip!

PS, Send me your phone number, love to have a chat!

Regards,

RLI

Tentatively we're ok for 2,3,4 Sep (arrive at about 5pm or so on Friday 2nd).

It's a 3 hour haul from Newcastle, via Heatherbrae and through Buladelah. The new highway makes it much easier.

For those considering the journey from south - don't listen to your GPS if you plug in the destination, it will make you turn off the highway into a dead end because the bridge has been destroyed. Take the sign-posted Coopernook turnoff instead, your GPS should re-path just fine.

Old.Tony said:

Tentatively we're ok for 2,3,4 Sep (arrive at about 5pm or so on Friday 2nd).

It's a 3 hour haul from Newcastle, via Heatherbrae and through Buladelah. The new highway makes it much easier.

For those considering the journey from south - don't listen to your GPS if you plug in the destination, it will make you turn off the highway into a dead end because the bridge has been destroyed. Take the sign-posted Coopernook turnoff instead, your GPS should re-path just fine.

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G,day mate,

Those dates are fine with us.

We will take our children out of school on Friday, arrive arround lunch time at Coopernook. We will have to leave Sunday morning at 9.30am, as My wife has to be back at work at 1.00pm at Coffs Harbour Hospital.

Regards,

RLI

Coopernook weekend trip!

G,day Young Tony,

After seeing you on skype, i think you need to change your call-sign! Mate your not that old. My cheeky wife piped up and said, "darling you look older than Tony"!! Quick as a flash i said “It's obvious that i have spent more time in the sun darling!!!!”

So far it looks like it is just you and your darling wife and me and my family for the Coopernook trip so far?

Regards,

RLI

Unless anyone else pipes up. We're good to go, but a medical appointment has landed just after 3pm so we'll be there late - but we'll be there.

As you pull into the area, the "road" curves around to the left behind a thin line of trees and disappears into the bush. Between that line of trees and the main road is roughly where I think we'd be best camping, unless you don't have a toilet with you, in which case you could camp on the north side of the road behind those trees. The ground isn't perfectly level, but we just angle-parked the van and all was good.

Old.Tony said:

Unless anyone else pipes up. We're good to go, but a medical appointment has landed just after 3pm so we'll be there late - but we'll be there.

As you pull into the area, the "road" curves around to the left behind a thin line of trees and disappears into the bush. Between that line of trees and the main road is roughly where I think we'd be best camping, unless you don't have a toilet with you, in which case you could camp on the north side of the road behind those trees. The ground isn't perfectly level, but we just angle-parked the van and all was good.

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G,day Tony,

Mate, do you ever think i could get away without providing a toilet to three princesses whilst conducting outdoors camping excursions. The only way I could make it to Cape York. I had to purchase a Jayco Outback Hawk camper trailer. My darling little princesses will not use a normal box type camper trailer, Swag or tent!

PS, don’t’ let her know that I said this! It could severely limit my alcohol rations on the Muster trip!

Regards,

RLI

Mum's the word. Be good to take a squiz at the Jayco camper, I'm really not a big fan of anything Jayco produces because I think they're really, really sloppy in their larger vans. Better than Opalite, who put together a nice rig, but are blissfully ignorant of the meaning of the word "warranty", which at least Jayco appears to understand.

We will eventually replace the caravan that we have, but aren't sure which way to jump yet. The new van has to meet a few criteria, the list is quite extensive and a fair bit off-topic for here, but when we find the right one we'll be real happy. We're thinking at the moment that it'll be a custom build - our needs are quite different, for example - all of the main 12V power cabling HAS to be 8 sq mm and not use the chassis, so both +ve and -ve are cabled through to prevent failure points developing.

Hey Tony, totally changing the topic here, but, I just got a quote on some 10mm weld flex for a job, $3.00/m pretty damn good if you ask me, will be doing my dual battery in it, both +&-.

Oh, and I thoroughly intend on getting my little one in the swag ASAP in the hope that she will get used to it before she gets her own ideas!

Rich

We're wanting to get the grandson into camping as well. He's 2, and would be a bit of a handful at the moment.

If you can get 10mm cable that cheap then go for it, that's superb. I can see the auto electrician complaining about having to drill with a holesaw to put the cable through (because you need to use a grommet) but that's his problem!

Might be able to make it too, will have to check my new roster. haven't been online in 8 days been working that much

Here's a couple of pics so ya'll know what the place looks like.

And a couple more...

G,day Tony,

Great chatting to you last night, the photos of the Coopernook campground are great. The campground area looks very flat which is a real bonus. Question: Is there a river or creek nearby and what is the area renown for?

Regards,

RLI

Would of liked to see this joint but thats the weekend of my sisters birthday.

The 8th of Sep is mine so might have a few cold JD''s the next weekend.

It's flat-ish. Ground slopes from the road down to the north. You can see this in the 2nd picture of the first set, the caravan is parked nose-up and the car's on an angle, the ground slopes with the ground on the right-hand side of the photograph higher than the ground on the left.

That's ok, just park facing uphill like we did!

Always be another time, Dave.

Hmm, nice. Just checked the calendar and it is clear. So will have a chat to the Boss in the morning and see what she thinks. Google says only 378kms for us, which is a days driving and do-able for us.

We had planned to go away this weekend for our August trip but the dreaded 3 letter T word is around and it is currently raining a bit, and sounds like it is going to be here for at least a week, so we might be champing by then. also gives me time to get the kitchen finished.

Edit update; calendar not clear now. bummer. next time.

G,day gents,

I now know where it is, i drove past it on the way back from Victoria on Thursday morning after i picked up my Nissan Patrol. I cannot wait untill we can catch up.

Regards,

RLI

Dave said:

Would of liked to see this joint but thats the weekend of my sisters birthday.

The 8th of Sep is mine so might have a few cold JD''s the next weekend.

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Another September boy, mines the 10th

Andrew you have no excuse now.

Piss up that weekend.

One of my best mates is the 9th.

Hi Tony,
Won't have the cable offcuts for another week sorry, will most likely be doing a Stockton trip in a couple of weeks so I can drop it to you then if you like.

Rich