Road Trip: Australia

Australia is an expensive country. Ask any Australian and they will tell you so. Ask me, and I will show you my quickly emptying bank account. Other than seeing my friend Deanna (click here to read about our time with her family), our plans were pretty vague. We wanted to see Australia, but in 8 days, and that is beyond impossible. So we rented a Scooby-Dooesquel camper van and made our way up the coast. First, let me say that driving a manual camper van, on the left, is not even close to a fun adventure. It is stressful and uncomfortable and miserable in general. This is made worse by a (well-meaning) husband who is actually proficient at driving stick on the left but hates doing so, and ends up being a 'co-pilot' driver constantly criticizing and 'helping' me drive better. For nearly 1000km. Talk about misery.

Let's move onto the nice things, as there is always good with the bad (and it cant all be good!). With the help of a few recommendation and websites, we ended up visiting several wonderful and gorgeous towns on our first real road trip day. We started at Terrigal for a beautiful beach view and a delicious lunch. Next we moved on to The Entrance to see the swarm of pelicans and cute little boardwalk - and an American candy place where I bought s'more supplies!

The beach at Terrigal - just stunning!

Pelicans at The Entrance. We missed the pelican feeding time, but it was cool to see them so close.

Then onwards, through Gateshead to Newcastle (that doesn't have a castle) to walk the boardwalk at sunset. Artfully dodging the sea-spray, we made it to the end to watch the clouds turn pink then golden then navy blue. We took tons of pictures because it was so beautiful! We walked back to the van to drive to our final destination for that day: Port Stephens.

  
Port Stephens:

A beautiful lake area with fun run/walking trails and a cute little town in Lemon Tree passage. We stayed here two nights and did nothing of significance other than watch a whole bunch of seagulls and pelicans wait for the scraps of guys skinning their fish catches. We explored the area, enjoying cooking out of the back of our van, and met some of our 'neighbors' in the caravan park.

 

Another 400kms or so and we got the chance to stop at Port Macquarie, a cute little town that was in the middle of hosting a half-ironman! We stopped in a lakeside cafe to eat and admire the view, while my mind took me back to my half-ironman. It was a beautiful place and we picked up groceries before moving on to our next destination: Southwest Rocks.

Southwest Rocks:

We had a nice surprise when we first arrived at our campsite - kangaroos! They were everywhere! One even had a joey in her pocket! I nestled down in the camper to take undercover pictures as they ate grass next to us. This would become a regular establishment each day as the kangaroos loved eating the grass in the campsite. We had another relaxed few days - time in the pool, walks on the beach, nice meals, and then finally on the day we left, a visit to the historical sights. 

 

Southwest rocks had the ruins of an old prison that had once held, well, prisoners, that were supposed to build a breakwater for the boats that were arriving from Sydney or Brisbane. The job was dangerous and many people died, and in the end, the project was never finished. Later, during WWII, political prisoners were held here as they might be spies. Since then, the prison has been mostly abandoned. We didn't go in as we didn't have the time, but it was interesting to read about it and see it in person.

Prison ruins at Southwest Rocks

Next up was the lighthouse, the highest lighthouse is Australia. It was quite a little hike up and brilliant white. Now it is automated, but it used to be controlled by a head and two assistant lighthouse workers. Their three families lived in near-isolation by the lighthouse as there was no school or market nearby. The sight from the lighthouse platform was breathtaking and really showed the incredible landscape of Australia. 

We then headed back down the coast - destination: Hunter's Valley.

Hunter's Valley: With all the windy roads, we arrived here about 5pm, just after all the winery's and breweries closed (darn!). We made friends with our neighbors - Germans! - who were traveling with their adorable 6 month old boy. I got to jump on a big jumping pillow and we had a delicious Thai meal. Then it was up and at 'em, nice and early.

Original destination: blue mountains. Real destination: airport!

With wifi being so limited, I had decided to check the Internet on the way to our next destination.  The campsite we had been in was unable to make their internet work, but another of their branches had the same, free internet. We took a small detour off the highway expecting to check emails, Facebook, etc. What I discovered was that our flight was leaving a day earlier than I expected! We had had to re-book this leg of the trip, but I didn't realize the new flight was a day earlier! This meant we had to get back to Sydney, ASAP!

A fire in the forest on our drive back.

This is not on the way to the airport - I'm too happy!

 With me in the driver's seat, we pushed the little van to the speed limit as it shook in anger and raced toward the return center. We still missed several turns and had a very frustrating drive before we arrived 20 minutes after the rental return had finished. Luckily, the gates were open and we could put the keys in a drop box and head out, a short taxi ride and we were at the airport. Phew, crisis averted. Stressed and unhappy, we checked in and made our way into the airport. At least we didn't miss our flight! Now it was out of the comfortable and known Australia and on to the great big unknown: Cambodia!