My Travels

On the 19^th met up with Dan in Sydney and then rented a campervan from Wicked Campers on the 20^th till the 29^th of December. After picking up the camper we headed north, crossing the Harbour Bridge on our way out of the city. On the 1^st day we got just past Newcastle before stopping in a rest area on the Pacific Highway. During the day we went to Swansea and got a picture with the sign. We made a slight mistake when we brought the food which we found out when we went to start cooking, which was we had no matches to light the gas stove, so we had to drive back down the highway to a petrol station, luckily there was one only 10 minutes away.

On the 21^st we went to Seal Island and saw the lighthouse there and had some awesome views down the coast over lovely beaches. We also went to Myall Lakes National Park, and not sure what creature was there but it made a deafening noise, there must have been hundreds of these bugs. You couldn’t stay long without it really annoying you. We did see dolphins at Tea Gardens which is a town by Myall Lakes and we were taking pictures from the bridge when we spotted 4/5 dolphins.

The next day we went to Maclean which had tartan on all their power poles and each one is different and has a name, so that was something different to see. We then headed to Ballina and drove up the coast to Byron Bay stopping at Lennox Heads view point. At Byron we went to Cape Byron lighthouse which is the most easterly point of Australia and Seal Island is the second. That night when stopped in a rest area for the night we saw a wild Dingo down the other end, which is the 2^nd Dingo seen in the wild since being in Oz.

After Byron we made a straight run to Brisbane and to Australia Zoo on the other side. It took ages to get through Brisbane, but once through we stopped at a campsite 5km away from Australia Zoo so we could get there easily the next day.

So on the 23^rd went to Australia Zoo and got to stoke a Koala, and kangaroos. We spent about 5 hours here during the day and was good but a lot smaller than expected. But saw Wombats, and Tasmania devils, surprised they didn’t have any platypuses there though. After the zoo we headed south of Brisbane and stopped at a rest area just off the M1.

The next day, the 24^th we headed to Surfers Paradise and checked into Main Beach Tourist Park for 2 nights, which is right by the beach. Unfortunately it was raining most of the day so didn’t go to the beach.

On the 25^th, Christmas Day, it was raining on and off in the morning but luckily stopped around midday, and so we were able to have a BBQ on the beach as planned and had burgers and Kangaroo steak, which was really nice. Also realised that this day was day 244 of my travels and so I had been travelling for ²/₃ of a year, which is quite cool that that fell on Christmas day.

The next day was headed south again and went to Cabarita Beach, which was a nice beach just shame it was raining on and off all day. We then went to Evans Head and to the lookout point over looking Airforce Beach, after we took a walk into the nearby national park.

On the 27^th we went to Dorringer National Park just west of Coffs Harbour, and went on the sky walk, unfortunately it was foggy and couldn’t see anything, but took a walk down into the rainforest and it actually looked cool in the mist, so that was good, after we went to Dangar Falls just north of Dorringer town. We then decided to get some miles done towards Sydney and stopped about 100km north of Newcastle. (After Dan made me drive past the rest area and then we had to do 50km to get back to it as the next rest area was 100km away.)

On the 28^th we went South of Port Stephens and looked around the coast there, were there is a desert of Sand Dunes which stretches out from the beach into Australia. Which was cool and he had a walk across them, luckily it wasn’t too warm otherwise the sand would of been roasting as it was nice and white. We then headed into Sydney and at the end we had driven 2742km in 9 days.