So we're back at Timmy's (Meg's Uni friend) at the Gold Coast after dropping the campa off in Brisbane this morning, we're hanging out today and going to visit Dev's friend Carly near Surfer's Paradise sometime tomorrow. We travelled from Sydent to Brisbane over 11 days in the van.
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| The Three Sisters |
We had a great time with our campa van (that's what they call it :)) and are going to miss having our own wheels. Due to a mix-up with the pick-up location in Sydney, we were late getting our rental so hit crazy Sydney rush hour traffic on Thursday night (Sept 10) but they gave us our first night free so worked out okay. We headed for the Blue Mountains, which is a little over an hour west (three hours for us) of Sydney and ended up in Katoomba. It was already dark by that time, so we hit up a grocery store and drove around the town scoping out a good place to park. We ended up picking the side of the road in a residential area largely because we saw another camper parked there. When we woke up the next morning we realized we had parked right beside the main lookout over the Blue Mountains National Park. In the dark we hadn't seen it but we were right in front of "The Three Sisters"! (a famous Aussie stop). Funny we had missed it.
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| Dev Exploring the Caves |
We were up super early so explored the bushwalking trials the next morning including the "Giant Staircase" down the side of the Three Sisters and through the valley to take a trolly back up to the top, thank God. We then drove to the Jenolan Caves where we did a tour of an underground cave with a bit of a strange tour group, which was about as interesting as the tour itself :) Apparently people sometimes have their weddings in the caves, which would be really weird! I wonder if Liz and Simon would consider a venue change? :)
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| Making Good Use of Our Headlamps! |
We didn't want to take the windy roads down the mountain in the dark so we slept in a rest stop on the mountain which was surprisingly cold but we got our first chance to use our camp stove to make canned chicken curry and our first instant coffee of the trip in the morning (so gross!). We realized that our battery that was supposed to be working our fridge, dvd player and interior lights weren't working by that point, so those headlamps that Jared (Cushman friend) gave us before the trip came in super handy! Dev and I looked pretty nerdy reading and playing cards with them on though! :) (Meg looks nerdy, Devin looks cool).
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| Cooking Breakfast Near the Jenolan Caves |
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| Dev Making Friends With The Local Kangaroos |
The next day we started to get back on track to head up the coast. After a couple of hours of driving, we found a national park near the town of Woy Woy to stop at for the night. I don't think we were technically supposed to be there, but it had a sweet beach. Ha, we still hadn't taken a shower by this point in the trip (night 3), so in desperation I jumped in the ocean that morning. It was cold, but a fisherman had told us he had caught a shark there the night before, so I was much more worried about that :) Oh yeah, and on the way there we stopped at the Australian Reptile Zoo where we could pet kangaroos and emus and we had our picture taken with a koala. The koala was pooing the whole time the picture was being taken, so that there is even some in our picture! I swear it was looking at Dev the whole time it was doing it too :) (Devin wanted the picture with the Python but was trumped with the Koala).
Drove to Newcastle the next morning to check out the beach there and then booked a campsite at the nearby Port Stephens (which I think is a lot like Florida, lots of caravan parks and old people). Although we booked in at a caravan park it felt like a five-star resort -- toilets and showers! There was a great beach there and we hung out at the pool and finally took showers! :P We booked a whale watching trip in the morning but didn't see a thing, just a lot of water but the crew gave us standby vouchers for another company up the coast in Coff's Harbour.
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| Coff's Harbour |
We discovered rest stops that night on the way to Coff's. All along the Pacific Highway, there are stops with washrooms for people to stop, so we fully took advantage throughout the trip.
We got up late and missed the whale watching boat the next morning by a couple of minutes cause we were taking our sweet time getting ready :) But no worries, we parked our van right beside the harbour and opened up the back and had a lazy day. Our battery had finally been fixed in Port Stephens the day before so we watched Law and Order dvds that we had picked up at the Big W (a Walmart ripoff) the day before. We love Jack McCoy :)
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| Round Two Whale Watching |
We went out for Chinese food that night, I can't remember if I mentioned it before but you can bring your own booze to most restaurants which is great! We camped out in our spot by the beach the next day and discovered showers in the nearby picnic area in the morning. Our lucky day, but I got a total brainfreeze :) We did round two whale watching that day and saw like six whales and tons of dolphins! We got a whole bunch of crappy pictures :)
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| Post Surfing Lesson |
Our last stop on the trip was Byron Bay, which is a really cool spot on the south coast famous for surfing and kind of hippy lifestyle. Lots of dreads and interesting fashion choices :) We did a lot of beaching and even did a surf lesson one day. Way harder then it looks but lots of fun! Even Dev liked it and we decided that this is one sport that for now we have an equal skill level in :) We got a campsite in Byron for one night so that we could check out the nightlife. They have a great pub in the Beach Hotel that is...on the beach :) There was a somewhat strange seven piece band there and lots of AFL (Australian Football League) fans watching what I think was a big match. We can't seem to get a grasp on it. We were there for about three days and headed towards Brisbane late last night (Sept. 18).
Past Carly's, we haven't figured out where we go from here, but keep you posted!
