Clarence River Cruise - Step 2 - Maclean: Tartan Town

Maclean is known as the Scottish Town in Australia and it sits on a high point and bend on the Clarence River. The public pontoon available for visitors to tie up to can handle 2 yachts. Amazingly it has water available and from 06:00 - 18:00 there is 240v power too - DE-lux! They want visitors to come and stay and we were happy to oblige. A 24 hour time limit on the jetty exists, although an old chap came along to get us to sign a visitors book and suggested we stay as long as we liked! Having taken on water and powered-up for a day, we returned to the enormous anchoring area opposite. Saturday night on a jetty, hidden behind a levee bank, close to a car park and 3 pubs is not our idea of a good night's rest. Pranksters have been known to untie boats at night!

The Bloke dropped me off to have a look around and raced back for Anchor watch. Yesss!

The town roundabout with depictions of historical local activity.

In acknowledgement of the large number of Scots people who settled here, lamp poles sport various clan tartans. They are everywhere!

Every Easter, highland games are held in Maclean and Pipe Bands march through the town as part of a Scottish themed parade.  We had deliberately stayed away and thought we'd time our visit for when the town was a little more tranquil (less bagpipes).

The Clarence River is long and wide and navigable.

   

I spotted a laundry attached to the local BP Garage on the main road as we motored in.

It was a ripper, and we are now clean and good to go and explore without offending anyone.

   

We enjoyed a pleasant Sunday pub lunch and walked it off by marching up the hill to locate the Scottish Bi-Centenial Cairn, complete with Clansman wind vane.

More tartan clad poles.

In addition to the bountiful jetty (water + power), we found plenty of convenient facilities that would enable a longer stay upstream. A lovely laundry exists just 1km down the road (I can barely believe I'm excited by a laundry). The walk is made more interesting by the existence of a couple of antique shops and more tartan clad power poles - there are at least 200 of them. A Spar supermarket is almost on the waters edge plus Fish and Chip shop (important for The Bloke's Friday-Night-Fish-and-Chips), coffee shops, etc even a Harvey Norman and Toy World. Lots of boxes getting ticked here. No need to rush on through.