Our road trip began by picking up our campervan from a hire place called 'backpacker'. That meant that it had a massive sticker saying 'backpacker' on each side, front and back, advertising to everyone that we were clueless travellers without any money. Hi everyone!!
Sophia quickly named it Harold after the fat guy in Neighbours. Our first trip was to a supermarket called Aldi. The only place in Australia with anything close to a reasonable price tag. We bought food to hopefully last us the 2 weeks, and included 12 extra large cans of tuna, 12 cans of beans, 12 tins of sardines, some pasta and rice. Having a varied menu was not on the agenda.
We said a sad goodbye to Angelo and Trudy, who were amazing to us and set off on our 3500km journey to the north-eastern town of Cairns.
Our first stop was seeing Katie's brother Greg and family, for a great chat and yummy lunch. We then headed north towards Myall Lakes national park. We chose mainly coastal roads passing many fine beaches and stumbling on interesting things . Our first night we took a turning onto a forest a dirt road that would have lead to the beach had it not been for large pools of water we had to drive through. Although I made the call that the road was not muddy enough to stop us going through, after 5 pools, each getting progressively larger, the darkness setting in, and my heart jumping out of my chest at each submersed episode; we finally pulled over in a small opening under the trees. Here the ground was a little muddy, but we didn't want to worry about it till the morning, despite Sophia alerting me to the fact that it may rain heavily. We cooked dinner and enjoyed that until the rain set in. It didn't stop all night and it meant I didn't sleep a wink, worried sick about the potential prospect of getting bogged in, without phone reception and not another car or person in sight for miles. Of course Sophia was sound asleep, reassured by my 'it should be okay!' comment in response to her concern.
6am came and the sound of rain hitting the campervan roof accelerated. I was stressed.
We reversed out back onto the dirt road, with the wheels spinning all the way. Phew step one complete!
I then kept poor Harold in 1st gear and literally attacked the now much deeper pools like a bull in a china shop. On one occasion the car shuddered in the middle of the deepest pool, being suffocated by the depths of the water which had also splashed and completely obscured my windscreen. Thankfully I had hit that pool with such speed that the camper just about made it through having had a thorough bubble-bath. We finally made it out of the forest, changed my pants, ate breakfast and then headed further north. We also stopped for a walk along an ancient aboriginal area, now covered by sand dunes. The landscape ferocious and the sea fierce.
We went further to an awesome beach called Seal Rocks, had a walk and made some coffee. That was near Kempsey south of Port Macquiarie, a word I can never pronounce correctly. We followed the coastal road through Crowdy Bay national park which was essentially driving through a forest dirt road (another one), but this time no pools of water to go through! However about 50km in we heard an unusual noise from the bottom the car like rattling and the smell of burning rubber. My first thought was that the spare tire well had collapsed and was being dragged along the ground. It was actually a large branch almost 2 inches in diameter. One end of it was dragging along the ground, the other end had made its way through the suspension spring of the rear right wheel, and rammed up against the inner wall of that tyre and wedged up into the wheel arch. It would not budge and my concern was it would eventually puncture the tyre! It was also acting like a giant brake explaining why we were doing about 10km to the gallon!!
This issue was solved by the saw of my trusted Swiss knife... and the branch had to be cut twice before setting it free..result!
After the mini delay we headed on, stopping for lunch and admiring the scenery. We stopped at another awesome beach called Nobby's beach north of Coff''s Harbour. There are just so many wonderful beaches to stop and admire. If only I could surf! What's more the roads were empty and rarely did we see another human.
We pulled up in a random wooded area close to a main highway, and stayed there the night. It was quiet and we were surrounded by tall trees and greenery. Awesome.
We set off early and and headed on to Iluka north of Grafton at Bundjalung national park. We pulled up at a quiet park with an incredible beach in the background. We had lunch, I went for a run and Sophia a nice long walk.
On my return I bumped into four volunteer workers who regularly wandered the beaches collecting rubbish. One guy must have been well into his seventies and quickly latched onto my London accent. We got talking and this guy had left Hampshire 50 years ago with a one way ticket to Oz. He'd been travelling throughout the country ever since. I asked if anyone would mind if we stayed in the car park overnight (being fellow gypsies of course) and they didn't think the park ranger would be around this late in the afternoon.
Within ten minutes the ranger came. He asked if we had only parked up for lunch and had no choice but to say yes. He then spent half an hour helping us plan our journey north and charmed him into letting us stay the night as long as we would be gone by morning. Result! Dinner and beautiful stars before bed.
Our next stop was Byron Bay. A famous beach stretching for miles and a hit with the surfers. It was beautiful and clean. Despite it being cold, we just had to get in. Sophia put her wet suit on, I didn't fit into mine, and we ventured in. There were a few surfers around, and of course a 1970's vw campervan which added to our tally, now at over 20. It was fun and we played with the giant waves. We had a shower and headed on. Another great experience.
Our next stop was into the national park boasting Mt Warning. A peak whose claim to fame is that it's summit is the first point to see a ray of sunlight anywhere on Australia's vast land. It's stands at around 1200m. We stayed at a campsite for the first time which meant hot showers that were thoroughly appreciated! We also saw another vw campervan and free wifi was a bonus.
In the morning the weather was bad, so we skipped the climb to Sophia's relief and we moved on.
That night we bought some steaks and sausages, and had a feast. We camped in a national park forest.
Our next stop was towards Frazier Island, the land of the dingos (native wild dog). However the sand dunes meant that only 4x4's were allowed on the island so instead we found a beach road and made our way to Rainbow Beach. We parked up on a small sandy road and had a perfect view of the beach. We had cooked up some left over sausages and warmed up some buns.... Yumyum! We then went for a nice long walk, passed some fishermen and enjoyed the sand and sea. Sunset was awesome and the colours in the sky vibrant.
After a good nights sleep we headed off towards Mackey. It was a long drive and we parked up by the beach again, went for a run and watched sunset. Almost a routine!
We got some info from the locals and the following day headed to Eugella national park where Hatton Gorge is located. This was one of our favourite trips and the walks led through jungle terrain and to a large river with water pools. We took our swimming gear but the mountainous water was freezing. I challenged myself to get in and on a second attempted managed to submerge only upto my neck. My body went numb and I jumped out ASAP! Soph videoed this ordeal to her amusement.
We headed back to Harold, made some food and enjoyed a good nights sleep. In the morning I had my crumpet stolen by a coocuburra (no idea how to spell it but it's a large and scary bird), and then headed further north hungry.
We reached the famous Airlie beach and booked a snorkelling and beach tour which advertised powered inflatable rafts that was a fun way and quicker way to get to the islands. Sure enough the Aussie captain was a nutter and she did some high speed turns on this huge open dingy making us hold on for dear life. We loved it!! Our first 2 stops were snorkelling stops by some nice coral, and although it was cold we loved it. We saw many large fish none of which I know the names of, (actually I know the parrot fish). Then we headed to the amazing Whitsunday islands, and onto Whitehaven beach. These group of islands are national parks and therefore not a single hotel, hut or even inhabitants can be seen. It is the most pristine white sandy beach we have ever seen and one of the purest sands in the world. The reason it is almost white is because the sand is 98% silica. We had a nice lunch on the beach, learnt some history about the aboriginal people who used to live there only 100 years ago, and headed home after some more crazy manouvres. We watched sunset again and spent the night in a small hidden carpark. A great day!
After two nights at Airlie beach we headed further north, having travelled over 2500km. We only had another 1000km to go!!
We stopped south of Cairns and our search for a night spot started by heading towards the beach along a dirt road. After several km and little sign of beach we decided to spend the night by a quiet river bank. We cooked some tuna (almost through all 12 large cans), and pasta. Sophie also made some pop corn and it went down a treat. All was well until about
3am when I opened the side door to go to the 'loo'. To my shock horror instead of being about 2 meters above the water level, we were now only 6 inches from it!! All I could see was water and the leaves of a tree that was previously completely visible. I freaked out and in panic we moved on rapidly. Thoughts of the whole area flooding and Harold being swept away kept me up for the rest of the night, but by the morning the level was back to normal. The phenomenon known as a tide. Lesson learnt!
We headed to Cairns the following morning and arrived late afternoon.
On our way we noticed cars flashing their lights as they drove towards us. We realised something was wrong and as we approached the commotion we saw a 36 wheeler truck completely on its side on the opposite side of the road. We quickly pulled over and ran over to help. An electricity cable was across the cabin and the driver thankfully standing but trapped inside. One guys was kicking the window to break him out. I soon joined in and Sophia got the wheel nut spanner and fire extinguisher from Harold. After a few minutes of bashing and shards of glass flying everywhere, we managed to get the 58 year old driver out. He was clearly in shock and was quite agitated but thank fully unharmed despite almost walking into the live electricity cable. Having inevitably entered doctor mode (again) I did a quick ABC assessment and realised this guy had made a miraculous escape. I grabbed his neck to immobilise it and Sophia got a camping chair and put the kettle on in true British style. Eventually the police and paramedics came and relieved us of our duties. Another piece of excitement! Having overheard the statement given by the driver, his front left tire had exploded at 100km/he resulting in his whole truck overturning.
After mulling over the events of the day whilst on the road, my eye caught a bashed up 1960's vw split-screen campervan in the distance. Performing u-turn and emergency stop all in one we headed towards it to find out what it was doing there. To our surprise and excitement we stumbled upon a classic vw enthusiast and restorer. We couldn't hold our excitement and soon divulged our love for campers. The Italian Aussie guy was pretty cool and showed us around the campers he was restoring, all 9 of them! We were in our element and the highlight being a 1958 splitscreen which was awesome!! We'd never seen one of these in the flesh and in the UK just the shell would be worth over 10 grand! We eventually left after many pictures and that increased our vw tally to over 30.
In Cairns we booked a snorkelling trip to the great barrier reef and found a spot to stay the night under an electricity pylon.
Our reef trip was amazing. We went to the outer reef which is the generally undamaged part after extensive damaged caused by a cyclone a few years back. The coral and fish were spectacular. We spent hours in the water and my waterproof camera came up trumps. I saw a giant turtle and that was pretty special. We snorkelled at a second spot and then headed home. The great barrier reef was subsequently upgraded to one of our top three amazing things we've seen so far, along with the Taj Mahal and the Angkor temples. Truly amazing tragic that it's estimated life span is only another 10 or 15 years.
We handed back Harold the day after, amazingly still in one piece, and reminisced over the hours we had spent getting him from Sydney to Cairnes. Thank you Harold and thank you east coast Australia! X
Next stop Melbourne.
