Bateman's Bay,
Australia
Thursday, December 7, 2006
Our first night in the van was really good. I'm sure the novelty will wear off pretty soon but for the moment we enjoyed being self sufficient. I awoke to the sound of the birds that we had been listening too last night, they're like big black crows but they crow like they're laughing. Really weird, but highly amusing, laughing birds. I put the stove on for tea and we had Weetbix for breakfast before heading for showers and things. It's a bit of a hassle to get to stuff when the bed is down because it's storted underneath but we've decided to leave most of the bed down and just have on section to put the camping chairs and table out, so that we don't have to pack them away everyday too. The van is just a bog standard van really, that's been converted into a campervan. The back of the van has had storage built into it on which three foam mattresses lie to create the bed. At the back of the van, where you lift the boot door up, there's a small kitchen unit with a sink (water bottle and pump tap attached) a space for the stove and a couple of shelves. Next to the unit it the cool box plus dustpan and brush thingy. All in all it's quite a nice little van with curtains all around to block out prying eyes when you sleep. We packed everything back into the van and set off towards Shell harbour town which was only a 5 minute drive away. We parked up at the beachfront and had a wander, Shell harbour was pleasant beach town, very small but quite charming in a non-touristy way. Lee tried to find a shop that might sell a map seeing as we currently have no map and a completely useless Lonely Planet shoestring guide which covers nothing at all! I had a wander around the cute little boutique shops, finding a pefect baby shop to buy my friend Annice, a pressie for her newborn baby son. The lady in the baby shop was really helpful, she directed us to the NRMA in Kiama, a small town not far down the road to Melbourne, where we could get a road map. You would not believe how difficult it has been trying to find one. We've asked in petrol stations, department stores but no one has one. So we were willing to stop anywhere on the off chance that we might actually find something useful to tell us where we should be going. Before heading off we wandered down to the waterfront to have a look. It was a lovely sunny day, there were a few fishing boats about and as we wandered around we saw a huge group of Pelicans. I've never seen Pelicans in the wild before, they are really funny looking things, big, long, pointy beaks, a pale pinky colour with white and black feathers that would look perfect on a hat for Ascot. I couldn't believe how many there were, or how big they were, it was only then that, by chance, I looked up. Perched high up on the street lamps were even more Pelicans, Lee hadn't noticed them either, it was really funny. Next stop Kiama, where the lovely lady in the NRMA gave us lots of road maps for free, even though for non-members they should have been $7.95 a pop. I think she took pity on us being so mapless in such a big country. Onwards we drove, past signs warning of roads that may flood, with indicators showing 2 meters, which made me laugh because there's a huge drought going on at the moment and most of Victoria is on fire, so where these floods that put the road under 2 meters of water come from is a mystery to me. Ideally we wanted to find another park to camp in but as the time got closer and closer to 6pm we realised that wasn't going to happen and drove to Bateman's Bay, in particular the YHA and camping ground, which turned out to be right on the main highway and not really that pleasant. We drove off the highway and onto the tourist drive, as we had been doing all day, to follow the coast and pitched up at Clyde View Caravan park on Beach Road, and right on the waterfront of the Clyde River. We pitched up our van just back from the beach, right next to an ants nest and, first things first, cooked dinner Spag bol again but this time eaten on the picnic table at the waters edge. It was a lovely setting, sitting, eating out in the open with a big, beach reserve in front of you. After dinner we had a wander along the beach, Lee took his binoculars so we could look at all the bird lift around. We've seen cockatiels in the wild, wonderfully colourful parrot birds, more laughing crow birds, birds that sound like a radio being tuned, weird and wonderful birds. For someone who used to be a member of the RSPB young ornithologists club it's brilliant. We also spotted one white bird that had the longest neck I have ever seen a bird have. It was probably the size of a big seagull body wise, but it's neck was long, in an S shape, that it could retract if it wanted too. I tried to get a picture so we could find out what it was but it flew off when I tried, which really peed me off because it had been sitting on the water for about 2 hours.
Two things really annoy me about Australia already - #1 mosquitos and #2 the bloody flies. Mozzies are a pain everywhere but, I guess, can be deterred using insect repellent. The files however and just a pain in the backside, bigtime! They constant buzz around you, right in your face, all the time, up your nose, in your ear, landing on your face, just generally invading your personal space. It's already really annoying and I want to kill them all. It's a losing battle it really is and it's also like some sort of torture. One thing that's really good about having the van, is that you're in bed by about 10pm coz of the lack of light (and fires are currently banned because of the bush fires) and up at about 8:30am, meaning we're getting loads of sleep each night. We both wake up feeling refreshing and great, this sleep lark really does work, if you haven't tried it I'd recommend it.
