Although this time, we were driving on the proper side of the road and had a normal gearstick camper, there were a few funny things about driving in Oz – the signs on the main roads and motorways were warning you too look out for koalas and kangaroos (apparently you’re more likely to hit one of them at dusk or dawn). Roundabouts are a fairly new feature to Oz so some drivers are still nervous about using them, which makes for fun! It’s so warm, you have to keep your window closed and the air conditioning on full blast - never before, have I had to close a window to keep the warm air out!
Despite these differences, we successfully travelled around the East Coast in our usual garish campervan style (trying hard to blend in with the locals in car parks). We had a fantastic time and stayed at some great campsites, had some lovely food, visited lots of pristine postcard beaches and saw a large variety of beasties...
• Gosford
First night in the camper, we camped by the beach in a small town called Gosford (50km North of Sydney). Really lovely little costal town, similar to Inverness back home and the first place we’ve come across that actually sells disposable BBQs, so we stocked up! (We were starting to worry that disposable BBQs didn’t exist in Oz).
• Gosford
First night in the camper, we camped by the beach in a small town called Gosford (50km North of Sydney). Really lovely little costal town, similar to Inverness back home and the first place we’ve come across that actually sells disposable BBQs, so we stocked up! (We were starting to worry that disposable BBQs didn’t exist in Oz).
• Forster
The drive to Forster was beautiful. The closer we got, the more lovely stop offs points/vistas there were which lead to beautiful lakes and small beaches. Forster is the home to the Wallis lakes. This was the first place we came across that had shark & jelly fish nets on the beach. We liked the little beach town so much, we stayed for two nights in a local campground. Campsites in Oz are amazingly equipped; most have a couple of outdoor pools, electric BBQs and huge outdoor camp kitchens. We had our first couple of Aussie BBQs in the campground. We spent most of our time at the main beach and neighbouring outdoor swimming pool – great place!
This was also the first place on our camping trip that we felt the full force of the pesky mosquitoes. We had to do a thorough mozzie check in the camper, before settling down for the night!
• South West Rocks
On our way to South West Rocks we stopped in a small town called Port Macquarie. Another seaside town with an amazing beach! We reached South West Rocks by late afternoon and stocked up on some supplies in the local shop. We were a bit worried that the town looked a bit too residential with not much going (or a discrete place to camp), but on the way to our planned camp spot (along a street not too dissimilar to Ramsay Street) we saw....a kangaroo standing in someone’s garden.
We slowed down to take photos. A passing local mentioned that most of the kangaroos graze in the early evening in a spot of land next to the local pub. We headed down and found a perfect camp spot next to the water, just down from the marina and local pub (and just across the road from around 15 roo’s). It was fantastic seeing the kangaroos close up (and a baby joey in its mum’s pouch!). Very funny creatures – completely undaunted by the noise of the passing traffic and pub, but watch you very closely if you walk past (like meercats, but when standing straight, they were closer to Arran’s height!).
We also realised that we were now completely out of the hazardous area of the dastardly funnel web spider (it has a 90 miles radius around Sydney) – phew!
• Coffs Harbour
On our way to Coffs Harbour we realised how much the Aussies invest in re-development on the roads. Some roads we travelled on were so new our GPS didn’t recognise them (which made for some fun re-routing!). Another, lovely seaside town. We spent our time chilling out on the beach. At 3pm on a Friday afternoon, we nearly had the whole of the main beach to ourselves! We ended the evening in the main local pub. We originally intended to stay only for a couple of schooners, but a meat raffle was taking place (meat platter raffles are really popular in Oz, we’d seen lots of posters but never been to one) so we thought we’d stay. We didn’t win, but decided to stay and take in a local band.
• Yamba
On the way to Yamba we passed through a small town called Maclean. We stopped off and noticed that the small town had a lot of Scottish influences – The Argyll hotel pub, Scottish Corner Butchers and nearly every telegraph pole was painted a different tartan! Apparently, after the clearances a lot of Scots relocated to this area. It’s also meant to be twined with Portree in Skye.
Yamaba was a lovely town – according to it’s sign it won Australia’s best small town last year. This made it a little bit difficult for wild camping. Nearly every spot had a sign up preventing overnight parking/camping (not really surprising given the fancy beach side apartments and houses), so we checked into a campsite for the night. The town centre was small but funky and just as immaculate as the beach, with rows of surfer shops, vintage shops, diners and cafe bars. After a camp stove dinner we walked along to a nearby beach along the pier, where we spotted a couple of iguanas hanging out! (We also spotted a small gecko running along the wall in the campsite kitchen).
• Byron Bay
We woke up to the smell of a full English breakfast cooking. It turned out that nearly all the Aussies in the campsite were cooking this on their fancy portable BBQs (the gear they take camping is incredible, must take some of them ages to get settled). We settled for some tasty pancakes on our campstove.
On our way to Byron Bay we drove past quite a few signs warning of the flooding from the weeks before. Some of the small rivers we drove past still appeared a bit overflown but we didn’t ever have to engage our dingy. Arrived in Byron Bay and realised (like the campervan folk warned, "there’s nowhere to wild camp in Byron Bay!"). It’s a very touristy town and attracts a lot of surfers. So we checked into a campsite. We spent the morning on the first of three beaches in the Bay – Tallow Beach. Fantastically pristine beach, with some of the hottest sand we’ve walked on (and the warmest water we’ve swam in). The public toilets in Oz are always quite interesting, especially if they are close to the water. I found a massive, thick legged spider in the sink of mine (luckily it was dead!) and Arran found a live frog living in the toilet bowl of his! We spent the evening in town. Really lovely town, with such a cool atmosphere. We went to the main beach at dusk and the beach front was filled with people just chilling out and taking in the view. We ended the night in the Beach Hotel – a massive outdoor bar with good tunes and food.
• Gold Coast
We stayed in two great campsites while in the Gold Coast as apparently wild camping / sleeping in your camper in public places is completely banned throughout the city – which we found out half way through the night. We had three fun days in the city, chilling out on more beaches (Surfers Paradise) and visiting a couple of the big theme parks – Marine World and Movie World.
As well as going on some terrifying rollarcoasters in marine world (the jet ski ride was the worst!), we saw some massive sharks, cheeky dolphins and hi-fived some baby stingrays.
Movie World was great fun too, with even more terrifying rollarcoasters – the superman one in particular – it had an extreme vertical drop! In fact, the ride was so fast, at 4.2 positive gforce and 1 negative gforce, that my contact lense popped out even though I pretty much had my eyes closed the whole way! The stunt car show was good fun too. We ended the afternoon with the Callaghan Combo and a few schooners in the Dirty Harry Bar.
We came to the end of our East Coast road trip on Thursday when we arrived into a very drizzly Brisbane.
We’re already looking forward to the road trip part two, when we head up to Cairns, in a couple of weeks time.
