Sydney to Gold Coast

Wednesday 14 February:

Valentine's Day. Or not in our case. Carl isn't really a romantic fella and for the last couple of days he's been trying to disappear to get my Valentine's Day card. Of course, being a female, I was already prepared. So on Valentine's Day Carl asked me to get the map out of the glove box and there was the card, full of love. We drove and drove for hours down some really dodgy, dark roads so that we could make a bit of headway and then maybe we would be able to spend at least two nights in one place. We ended up staying at Morton National Park. We didn't get there until it was dark so it was really creepy. Just as we arrived a huge Wombat staggered in front of the van and then blundered into the bush. Clearly it had had one shandy too many. The facilities were pretty basic - consisting of two toilets and a shower. Oh, there was also a barbecue area but obviously we didn't use it. We had to use our torches to go to the toilets which were nasty. Spiders and creepy crawlies everywhere. It was really scary when I went outside the van for a cigarette too. I kept hearing the wildlife in the bushes but because I have a very wild imagination I thought it might be a crazy Aussie sniper. One thing which we really love out here are the stars. At night, when the sky is clear, the stars are so bright and they're all clustered together. We've tried on many occasions to take a picture of them but we only manage to get one star. I don't know how.

Thursday 15 February:

Waking up in the national park was great. All the creepiness had disappeared so we were left with beautiful sights. Until we decided to have a shower. I was all prepared to face the cobwebbed shower and scrub myself clean until I saw a huge spider hanging from a line of web right above where my head would be. OK - it was a dead spider but all the same... I decided I would rather stink for the rest of the day so that's what I did.

From here we headed to Wollongong. The beach is really nice but it's a bit messed up because the view on the right is of an industrial plant. We still hit the beach and absolutely cooked. This was the first time we had actually sunbathed on the beach. Because we liked this place so much we decided to stay over in a caravan park. We managed to find a park on the beach and just across the road from a pub with grub. We hadn't been in a pub since we left Melbourne so we were having withdrawal symptoms. This is where we spent our evening.

Friday 16 February:

We drove to Sydney today which was a nightmare. It took just over an hour to get past the suburbs and the traffic was horrendous. This didn't give us a very good first impression of Sydney. We parked close to the Sydney Opera House and the views were amazing. You could see people walking along the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We tried to look for a caravan park close to the centre but no chance. Sydney is only good if you are a backpacker or staying in a hotel. So we had to face the hard drive out of Sydney and decided we would see it on another day. We drove around trying to find a caravan park outside Sydney. We managed to find one but they wanted to rip us off and charge us $35 just to park Gert on a piece of grass. So, because we are tight gits, we decided a better option was to keep searching. We found a place on the map called Basin Camp Ground which was in Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park. It took about 45 minutes to reach it and when we got there we noticed that the entrance gate was closed and there was a board saying that you could only take tents in. Gert wasn't allowed. So we had to drive 45 minutes back and stayed at the rip-off place. Doh! The park was so busy and we had no space at all but we did get chatting to this guy called Ian who gave us loads of tips on where to go. We didn't stay an extra night.

Saturday 17 February:

We left the rip-off campsite at 10.15am. Our earliest start yet. We took the drive up to Palm Beach, on Ian's say so, which was another lovely coastal drive. The roads were really steep and bendy and even though there were only a few roads it was difficult to get out of the place. We ended up going in circles. From Palm Beach we took a drive back through Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park. Along the road there were various stop points where you could park up and walk along a track to the beach or bay for excellent views. So we decided to stop at one called 'Challenger's Walk'. It sounds like the worst one we could have picked doesn't it? We walked on sand and rock with trees either side and it was really quiet. No wildlife. No humans. My sniper thought kept reoccurring. It was pleasant enough though until I stopped just in time. I nearly had a huge spider and its home in my face. We decided to mark the spot with sticks so we could easily find it on our way back. There were more spiders and webs as we went on and the bigger they got. For some reason the buggers span their webs at face height so we had to walk with sticks in front of us. We were only just past half way but we were both beginning to think that this was a very bad idea and were wishing that it was over. When we got to the end of the path, which was 1.5km, we had a view over a bay. Unfortunately, as with a lot of the views in Australia, the trees were in the way. But we did scramble to a clearing and managed to take a few shots. We then had to walk all the way back which wasn't that bad because we watched out carefully for our marks of danger and walked at high speed. Once safely inside Gert we headed for West Head.

West Head is a large point where you can see amazing views of Hawkesbury River and Broken Bay and the views were breathtaking. You could also see Barrenjoey Lighthouse. If you were brave, fit and could stand the heat, you could take the hundreds of steps down to the beach but we didn't because we couldn't stand the heat. From West Head we stopped off at Akuna Bay which is a tiny little village in Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park. It was here that we bought 6 Coronas and 6 Crown beers for $24. We won't be making that mistake again. It was also here that I saw my dream boat, Lady J, on sale for $775,000. Unfortunately there wasn't a cash point near by. After here we decided to find a campsite early instead of the normal 8.30pm check in when the office is closed. We settled at a place called Avoca Beach Caravan Park which was by a lake but unfortunately because of the draught we didn't see too much of it. We sat outside but moved inside once the filthy mosquitoes started to join us. The next couple of hours in the van were spent trying to kill the bastards. We managed to get them but there's always one bugger you can't see.

Sunday 18 February:

I was right in saying there's always one bugger you can't see. I had been bitten twice on my back and once on my hand. We did have a good night's sleep though. I thought I had done a good job picking a shower with no spiders or webs until after I had started the shower. A mum and her two baby spiders crawled in from the next shower so I had to keep an eye on my clothes and shoes. We cracked open a beer at 11am (Carl's idea, not mine) and then headed off to a place called The Entrance were we had a dirty KFC and then drove to Stockton where we found a campsite. In the evening we caught a ferry to Newcastle, the closest town, which only took 5 minutes. We ate at a fish reataurant by the waterside called Scratchley's which was excellent and then we caught the ferry back to camp.

Monday 19 February:

Gert woke up this morning with the biggest attitude problem. We were ready to rock and roll but Gert wasn't. We tried and tried again to start her but she wasn't having any of it. It was only when we were going to call out the recovery people that she finally woke up. Bless her. We headed to Bungwahl to pick up supplies (ice, wine, beer, cigarettes) before reaching Booti Booti National Park. From the butcher we bought our beef sausages, sandwich steaks and chicken kebabs, and stopped in at the pub for a refreshing scooner (three quarters of a pint glass). When we reached Booti Booti National Park we stayed at Ruins campsite. Once we had picked our spot in the National Park we headed for Wallis Lake. We had a paddle in the water which was so warm. We liked this area a lot because on one side of the roadway are beautiful beaches and on the right are lovely lakes. It really is the place to be. As we cooked our barbecue we were surrounded by kookaburra's - see pictures .

Tuesday 20 February:

We drove to Coffs Harbour and found a lovely campsite straight away called Park Beach Holiday Park. I must mention that as we drove off the campsite to get supplies, Carl (for the third time) had left something on the roof of Gert. The first time was a cup of water, the second time was the coil to our mosquito burner - this fell off on a main road - and the third was a bottle of oil. Back at the camp, I had psyched myself up all day to go for a run with Carl. This would be my first bit of exercise in over a year. I had a glass of red wine and a cigarette and then went for my run along the beach. I managed to run for about 15 minutes (don't laugh) but kept stopping and starting. Carl was way ahead of me. Because I didn't have any decent shorts to run in I had to run in my surf shorts which were clingy so had to keep stopping and taking them off which suited me fine. Still, even though I only manged to run for 15 minutes it was a big achievement and it made it that much easier to jump straight into the sea. It was great fun jumping the waves which were enormous. In the evening when we were sitting outside we saw our first bats which were huge. They were eating in the trees above our heads.

Wednesday 21 February:

We headed to Byron Bay. The beach was really busy but it was a lovely beach. The beaches we have seen along our way have a maximum of 10 people on them at one time which is crazy. We had a few bevvies after checking into the most expensive, and the worst, campsite so far. We read in the newspaper that Owen Wilson would be surfing in Byron Bay so we were on the lookout. At the campsite some idiot was playing the bangos very badly and this Irish guy behind us was playing very bad music. We found a lovely place to eat in the evening and ordered our meals but I couldn't eat anything so Carl had to eat my main course as well which wasn't a problem for the growing lad. Our waiter was a young English guy who had been over here for eight months but his travel plans were to go on for another two years or so. He attempted grape picking because in Australia you have to do 3 months agricultural work before you can stay but he only managed a week because of the heat. When we got back to our campsite the Irish youngsters headed off at 12am to go clubbing.

Thursday 22 February:

We headed North and ended up stopping at a place called Kingscliffe which was stunning. All of the houses were on a lake and had their own balcony, jetty and speedboat. Some with jet skis. We have been talking about having a house like this in a few years time. Our house would have a huge balcony where our dining room table and chairs and barbeque would be (most of the houses have this). On the way further up north Carl made a wrong turn into a dead end. It was a good wrong turn though. This dead end happened to be a dead end in Fingal where there was a walkway at the end. We followed the track on foot which led to a lighthouse with amazing views. The sea was quite rough and was crashing against the rocks where we were standing. We took plenty of pictures and on our way back to Gert we noticed a sign which pointed towards Heavenly Dreams Beach. We followed the sign and it certainly was a heavenly dream beach. A huge beach with lovely golden sand and only a couple of people on it. There were quite a few jelly fish washed up but what the hell. We jumped into the sea and played with the waves again. Well, I was attempting to but they were too big plus my legs were very painful from my running attempt. I saw this big one coming my way so I tried to run back to the beach but it went straight over my head and completely knocked me. Carl just stood there laughing and watched me run because he knew that it would get me. We couldn't believe that this was the fist time we had been in the sea. We drove on to Surfer's Paradise. It has a beautiful name but unfortunately someone decided to choose a beautiful coastline and ruin it with sky rise buildings. We didn't stop. We had earlier picked up a brochure for North Stradbroke Island (NSI) so we decided this would be our next destination.

To be continued in the next post...