 |
| Tent out the back. Great design. |
We spent the night at a hotel
in Brisbane and got a lift to the Campervan rental company. Spaceships.
All the vans have names. Ours is
called 'Ground Control'. I guess it's
calling Major Tom.
We went to the Gold Coast
City Marina and found Tortuguita to be in pretty good condition. Recent rains had washed the decks and no
signs of leakage anywhere. Good on the
new windows. We went driving about to
get groceries and things for the trip.
We bought a 12 volt fan to keep us cool at night in the van. Had jet lagged sleep that night on the boat
and left the next day to start camping.
The ELFRUN's.....
 |
| Atmo and Petra's house |
|
We met Atmo and Petra, from Privilege 39 catamaran ELFRUN, in Tahiti
and were in the same weather window group until New Caledonia. Atmo is also
a pilot and they live on an airpark outside Byron Bay at Tyagarah.
The airport is very busy with parachute jumpers. We went to a place we called 'Naked Hippie Lake' for an afternoon swim. The lake is an old quarry and has Tea Tree
tannins that make the water almost black.
Good thing for the naked hippies.
 |
| The Icarus |
|
That evening we had an
excellent dinner, drank too much wine, and slept in the camper in front of
Hanger 5. Half the hanger has a bee
honey operation in it. We bought a kilo
for $7.
The next day, Dave went
flying with the airport owner in an Icarus ultralight. It was an interesting plane but the scenery
was fantastic.
 |
| Byron Light House |
|
From the air, the Byron Bay market was seen so we made that the next stop on our
journey.
The VIRGOS CHILDREN.....
Actually the boat is VIRGOS
CHILD. We met Terry and Elaine on our
trip up the coast last winter and had some wonderful times in the Whitsunday's. They sailed around the world a few years ago
and knew people that we know. Small
world.
 |
| Minion Falls from the plane |
|
They live just south of Byron Bay so it was a short drive from the Sunday market. We parked the 'campa' in their driveway and
had a nice day catching up and walked to the beach for some body surfing. Drank too much wine that evening and left the
next day for the two hour drive back to the Gold Coast for dermatology
appointments. The goal was then to get
as far south as possible.
 |
| Elaine, Cooper, and Terry |
Woody Head......
Our first National Park
campground. Very full and heaps of
families with kids. Great location
outside the town of Iluka.
 |
| The Big Banana in Coffs Harbour |
|
 |
| View of Crescent Head from Anne and Al's deck |
|
The SAGITAIRE's.....
We stopped in to see Al and
Ann from SAGITAIRE and ended up staying for 2 days. Crescent Head is a cute surfing town half way
between the Gold Coast and Sydney. They live on the hillside overlooking one of
the best surf spots on the coast. What a
view, and a great house.
 |
| Al and Anne's House |
|
 |
| Sjani and Colin at Lemon Tree Passage |
|
The SHIKAMA's.....
We stayed with Colin and
Sjani from SHIKAMA for the night. Had a
good happy hour with some of Colin's homebrew Irish Whiskey and pizza
night. They live in Lemon Tree Passage
fronting a waterfront park with their boat moored right out the front
door. We did some morning bushwalking on
the park trails and took off for Sydney at noon.
The plan was to go to Sydney since it was the next place south but is was
Australia Day weekend and crowds don't really thrill us so we figured Sydney would have to wait for the return leg.
We made it through Sydney and about 2 hours south found a great camping spot at
the Morton National
Park just
outside the neat little town of Bundanoon. Hot showers
and kitchen facilities for $14/night can't be beat. That night we did a mile hike down into a big
hole to see some Glow Worms. Initially
sounded like a dumb thing but turned out to be quite neat. They are not worms but actually larvae that
put out strings of lighted eggs that attract insects that they then eat.
We then made it down to the
coast but the holiday festivities had packed everywhere. We stayed in an RV park in Milton and were in search of warm clothes since it was
getting chilly at night.
The WENDY ELLEN's.....
 |
| Dinner Party, (Zak on Right) |
|
We stopped at a few little
coastal fishing towns and ended up at Zack and Suzies just north of the town of
Tathra. The last time we saw Ronan was in Fiji when he was 2 years old. They live on
a lake surrounded by National Forest and were having an Australia Day Party on
Monday. Australia Day is like our Labor
Day. It's the end of the summer vacation
and most kids go back to school the following week. So it is a big celebration.
 |
| Wishing they were at the party |
|
There must have been 100
people at the party. Easily 40
kids. Zack has a wood fired pizza oven
and almost 50 pounds of flour were used to make probably 100 pizzas. It was getting even colder and we went to
Target for some more warm bedding. It
was late and we ended up camping just south of Eden at Boydtown.
 |
| Australia Day Party |
|
Drove through hours and hours
of coastal forest along the Southern Ocean and the Bass Straits and ended up at a church camp in the town of Tyre just outside of Lakes Entrance. Town was vacant since school was almost in
full swing.
We made it to the outskirts
of Melborne the next afternoon and camped at Balnarring Beach on the Mornington Peninsula in order to position us to take the ferry from
Sorento to Queenscliff where we would start on the Great Ocean Road.
 |
| Suzie and the Joey (Tai) |
 |
| Ronan and the Giant Cone |
|
 |
| Balnarring Beach Access |
|
 |
| The Sorento to Queenscliff Ferry |
|
We did some morning exploring
and took the noon ferry from Sorento.
Our first stop was the famous surfing beach, Bell's Beach. After
that we were winding for hours along the Great Ocean Road passing spectacular beach after beach. We got a campsite at the Wye River foreshore and then drove to Kennett Creek to see if
we could find wild koalas. Well, we
found'em, and King Parrots and Lorakeets too.
 |
| On the Sorento Ferry |
|
 |
| Bells Beach |
|
 |
| Wild sleeping Koala |
|
Our last destination on the
coast before heading inland was The Twelve Apostles. We have never seen such incredible rock
structures. A few of the Apostles have
fallen over but they are spectacular anyway.
We then headed inland toward Simpson and went to Apostle Whey Cheese
where we did some cheese tasting and bought a few blocks.'
 |
| They liked our food better than the other people's |
|
We wanted to avoid Melbourne so we found, the Treetops Scout Camp, an off season
boy scout camp that only had 2 other campers.
Not counting the 100 kangaroos bouncing around. We went to the Sunday Market in Gisborn and
left for our longest driving day so far.
700km and ended back at Morton Park with the Glow Worms in order to
position us for a morning arrival in the Blue Mountains.
 |
| Parrots at Kennett Creek |
|
 |
| Eating Gum |
|
The Three Sisters is in Katoomba
and required viewing when in the Blue
Mountains. At least it seemed that way by the herds of
Chinese tourists. We figured we would
take a short hike and 3 hours later after hiking 8 miles down in a rainforest
valley and climbing easily 1000 feet of hugely aerobic steep steps, we ended up
back at the van for a well deserved night in a hotel. It really wouldn't have been have been fun in
the campervan with the temps going down to 5C (40F) at night with cold damp
rain.
 |
| Visiting Parrot |
|
We were now in position to do
Sydney the next day.
We drove to the seaside village of Manly
and took the ferry in to Sydney. It was a perfect sunny day. We had lunch in town and got back to Manly
late afternoon and went up the coast to camp at a prime surfing spot by the
town of Narabeen. We watched
the surfers for a while and even though we didn't feel like any more hiking, we
went bushwalking the coast trail the next day.
Not another surfing
campsite.....
We drove to the Booti Booti National
Park. The surf was big but sloppy since the tide
was low and the winds strong. We sat and
watched the ocean for easily an hour and had a noisy night at the campsite. The early morning parade of surfer vehicles
put a damper on any intention of sleeping in.
 |
| The Twelve Apostles |
|
We were going to go somewhere
up in the mountains the next day but ended up being invited back to Ann and
Al's at Crescent Head. That was
nice. We stopped at Port Macquarie for
lunch, cooked dinner on the barbie and the next day went to the Trial Bay
Gaol. That's how they spell Jail in
Australian. The day flew and so we
returned to Woody Head, Iluka that night.
The place was empty compared to when we stayed there 3 weeks prior when
school was out.
 |
| East of Apostles |
The next night was spent
camping in the Lamington National
Park. 1 hour down a narrow winding road was the
campsite near O'Reilleys Guesthouse.
 |
| Three Sisters, Katoomba |
|
From there it was an easy
drive back to Tortuguita for a very comfortable night's rest. We did some small errands and left the next
morning to bring the mainsail 2 hours north to the Doyle Queensland sail loft in
Caloundra for some modifications. There
were a few possible campsites in that area to spend our last night at but they
all turned out to be dumps. We were used
to pristine, quiet, back to nature, park reserves and to find one, we drove an
hour west out to the Nerum Bush Retreat.
Well worth the drive.
We stopped in Brisbane and visited the Botanic Gardens and returned the van
that afternoon.
 |
| Sydney Harbour Bridge |
|
28 days, 5820 kilometers, 500
liters of Petrol.
Aussie Camping Trip
Complete!!!!
 |
| Sydney Opera House from the Ferry |
|
 |
| Opera House from the park |
 |
| Surf 'Break'? |
 |
| Booti Booti Beach |
|
 |
| Cookin' in the Campa' |
 |
| Trial Bay Gaol |
|
 |
| The Giant Prawn in Ballina |
 |
| Lamington National Park |
 |
| Stinson Trimotor that crashed near Oreilleys |
|
