Travelling in a van with Pops

  Brisbane to Sydney and back again, Australia
Thursday, April 3, 2008

So now to update for February and March; I finished work at the beginning of February and had two weeks to spare before pops came over from New Zealand so I recruited some friends to go to Fraser Island for a weekend of four wheel driving on the beach, avoiding getting stuck in the sand, avoiding dingoes and generally having fun. There were five of us girls (four nurses and one doctor) it was a self drive tour so we were put with four French guys, one French girl and a Korean guy, quite a combination. We had a great time but with various mishaps like driving to the ferry without noticing the vehicle had no petrol in it so tried phoning the hostel to get us on a later ferry but this being Queensland there was a power cut and the phones didn't work without power, nor did the petrol stations! Miraculously we made it onto the next ferry with a full tank. Fraser Island was really beautiful with fresh water lakes, forests, beaches and sand dunes. Fraser is a bit of a dangerous place really as you can't swim in the sea as it is apparently full of man eating sharks and rips that drag you off to Antarctica or somewhere, that combined with the dingoes and the backpackers driving at speed on a beach makes it all a bit hairy. Despite the danger we survived and I am probably going back as my friend Sharon who is visiting has not been. I have no photos from Fraser or from most of my trip with pops as apparently digital cameras don't like sand. Oops. After Fraser Gemma and I went to Byron for a couple of days were it rained constantly and we got attacked by leaches, mm lovely! We met up with Sarah (Gemma and Sarah live together in Sydney) and her parents who were over from the UK. On my return to Brisbane (Valentines Day incidentally) I got a call from the Frenchies (well 3 of them) who had traveled to Bris in their van but couldn't find anywhere to stay so they parked in the drive of my house for three nights. So I ended up spending what would have been another lonely valentine's day in a hot tub with three French men, could be worse!  
On the 17th Pops arrived in Brisbane and I was so excited to see some family, just because I'm having a lovely time and don't want to go home doesn't mean that I don't miss my family and wish I could see them. With the help of the Frenchies I picked dad up at the airport and brought him back to the house. Were I threw him a slightly belated 60th Birthday BBQ with the help of some friends from work and my flat mates.

a cake and pops

all my friends and pops

The skydive DVD had another showing just in case my humiliation wasn't deep enough! Apart from that we had a nice night and it was great to introduce Dad to all my friends. We then spent the next few days seeing the sights of Brisbane and doing all the things I hadn't got round to doing in the last six months. Dad was very excited about the city cat, the boats that bomb up and down the Brisbane River at speed. One night we randomly decided to get off the boat at the power house (an old power station turned arty farty place sound familiar?) we just stopped for a drink but ended up staying for dinner and seeing a comedy show The Umbilical Brothers who are apparently famous but obviously we had no idea, but they were very funny. After visiting every Botanical Garden and park in Brisbane it was time to move on. So we collected our camper van and began our journey south and I became officially homeless again.
            First stop was Byron Bay via the high rises and traffic of the Gold Coast, we stayed in Byron for two nights but I won't go into details as I have done before. After Byron I think we went to Station Creek camping ground (my memory is shocking so there may have been somewhere in between). This place is in a National Park off the pacific highway (which goes all the way from Brisbane to Sydney) which my flat mate recommended and gave us instructions on how to find. It was a long drive off the road on an unsealed road to a camp spot by the sea with no one around so after a stroll on the beach we lit a fire (when I say we I mean dad lit the fire!) and had some dinner. There was a lot of wildlife around and so dad saw his first kookaburra and bouncy things (still can't tell the difference between a kangaroo and wallabies) on the drive out we also saw a scary looking snake but didn't get out to introduce ourselves just in case.  We then went past Coffs Harbour (stopping at the big banana for a coffee) in land a little along the Waterfall Way a road passing through a set of national parks which climbs uphill to around 1000m altitude so it all got a bit chilly. Despite this we still swam in a rather large waterfall swimming hole called the Dangar Falls we also went for a walk in the rainforest time terrain which was spectacular. This road goes further inland than we wanted to go at this time so after a night in Dorrigo we turned back towards the coast, stopping enroute to do a bit of kayaking in the sunshine near a really lovely little place called Bellingen which had a great old fashioned department store and a lot of coffee shops.
Next stop was South West Rocks further down the coast which is a rather dull place but I wanted to go as it has a rather large underwater cave just off the coast so this demanded a dive! We camped under an old penal colony and the campground was swarming with kangaroos so it was all very Australian.  An early start was required the next day so Dad could experience his first dive.  It was a nice spot for a first dive as there were loads of sharks about (grey nurse sharks perfectly harmless but a bit scary looking) but I don't think he enjoyed it as much as I did my first dive because he wasn't itching to do it again. I had an excellent dive in the cave which had an air pocket halfway through were you could stop, take your regulator out and have a chit chat but you are still four metres below sea level. There were masses of sharks about and rays and I saw some rare type of lobster. I also saw my first nudibranch which is a slug like thing but is really small and really pretty, there have been loads on previous dives but I never spotted them.
After South West rocks we spent a rather cold and wet night in Port Macquarie and from there we went to the Myall Lakes national park which is an area covering lakes, forests and beaches. We parked up and had a BBQ whilst being harassed by Kookaburras and dingoes. One bird actually stole the sausage off dads fork, impressive flying! The next morning we went for a walk and saw a Koala in the wild, very exciting. We then drove on, to hunt down a pie; the lonely planet mentioned two 'famous' pie shops in the area both of which didn't exist so some fruitless time spent hunting pies in uninteresting towns. The problem with writing this belatedly is that my memory is getting pretty hazy so I may have got stuff in the wrong order. But I am pretty sure our next stop was Sydney.
In Sydney we stayed in a little national park called lane Cove which was great as it was quite but only a bus ride to the centre. In Sydney we did all the usual tourist stuff my highlights were going to the aquarium (check out the very bad picture of some squids),

squids

I could have spent all day there watching the sharks swim around. My other highlight was going to the Opera in the Opera House, we 'frocked up' and went to watch Carmen and drink bubbles in the interval looking out into the harbour, lovely.

frocked up for the opera

pops frocked up

We spent about 4 days wandering around Sydney before packing up the van and driving inland to the Blue Mountains. Less mountains and more big drop but none the less absolutely stunning. On the first day we took the tourist train down into one of the gorges and walked back out, it probably would have made more sense to do it the other way around but oh well. The next day we went on a walk that was supposed to take 4 hours but we finished in about 2 1/2 hours despite all the ladders, so we spent the rest of the day chilling out and doing nothing, a hard life!

three sisters

After another day of walking and investigating we went to the Jenolan caves which are a set of absolutely bloody massive lime stone caves which we took a tour through. The road that takes you to the visitors centre and car park goes right through one of the caves, very cool.

in the caves

We then spent a night in a place called Oberon, a town optimistically named after the king of the fairies, for absolutely no reason as far as we can discern. Sounds like a lovely place doesn't it? Oberon full of friendly folk who dance around in circles holding hands. Well you would be wrong. For a start its bloody freezing (well probably not freezing but we were sat in a cloud) and there is nothing there. Actually that's a lie there is an MDF manufacturing plant, a couple of pubs, some bungalows and a caravan park. It was lovely sitting in the caravan park listening to the soothing sound of MDF being made and thinking that this is probably what passes for a Friday night in the happening town of Oberon. It's not all bad we found a really lovely pizza place which was very busy so maybe that's what passes for a Friday night in Oberon. I'm sure Oberon is really a lovely exciting place but just not when we were there.

blue mountains

After Oberon we left the blue mountains to go to the Hunter Valley, we drove along a really pretty road through farming country to Cesspit, sorry I mean Cessnock not just a wine town but also coal, a strange place but a good spot to visit the wineries of the region. So we had an early night in preparation for a day of visiting wineries and sampling wine. We went on a tour so pops didn't have to drive and we calculated that we must have tried around 40 wines and I know I didn't spit any out! In the evening we went to a local pub for dinner with a guy that was on our tour an American called Mike who had hired a Harley on his break from working in Iraq, he obviously had money to burn as he insisted on paying for dinner and our taxi back to the camp ground.

at the hunter valley

Feeling less than great the next day we drove on North to Tamworth, the beef and country music capitol of Australia apparently. The drive to Tamworth was pretty stunning with open prairie type land but there isn't much else to say about Tamworth really. After a night in Tamworth we drove to the other end of the Waterfalls way we visited before. Enroute we stopped in a tiny town on the 'fossickers' way' called Uralla with the biggest second hand book shop ever, so an hour spent browsing! We then took the waterfall way to Cathedral Rocks national park and camped in a remote and stunning camp spot just beneath a hill/boulder pile which we scrambled up before having dinner by the fire, our peace and quiet only disturbed by some cheeky possums.

pops on the cathedral rocks

The next day we left the 'hinterland' to return to the coast up to Ballina a small town near Byron Bay which hosts the Big Prawn, wow.

the big prawn of Ballina

We staying in a tourist park with loads of facilities yet we decided to go for a swim in the lagoon nearby instead. Now the van has two sets of keys one for me and one for dad. So I left my keys in the van as we were swimming nearby and not taking bags, clothes etc and dad locked the van and off we went for our swim. After a lovely swim we are returning to the van and Dad is hunting about for the keys and we are sat outside the van dripping wet and getting cold. So it turns out that Dad put the keys in the pocket of the swim shorts I bought him for Christmas and therefore the keys are at the bottom of the lagoon and it was my fault for buying him the shorts! After the use of the telephone in reception and someone breaking into the van for us everything was lovely again. We went out for a lovely dinner that night to celebrate not being locked out of the van anymore. The next day we headed back to Brisbane for the night before returning our beloved van and dad going to the airport to fly back to good old blighty, boo hoo I miss my daddy! and my mummy and my sister and everybody, but I'm not coming home anytime soon he he he.