We had expected to head up the coast from Victoria, through Sydney again stopping at Bondi beach, however we realised that there were no camping spots within over a 150 km
radius around Sydney. Due to this we decided that we were going to re-look at heading out to the Blue Mountains. In the end we managed to find a circuit in which we could
include the Blue Mountains which would bypass Sydney. We were extremely glad we did this in the end as it led us through spectacular mountain ranges and across beautiful
high passes and long outback stretches of road, even if it may not have been entirely suitable at times for a 2 tonne high sided campervan. Quite often we didn't even see
a car for hours.
Upon arriving in New South Wales we were pleasantly surprised to be greeted by calm sunny weather and limited traffic disruptions after the recent flooding and bad weather.
We were also surprised by just how many dead Kangaroo's we saw at the side of the road and by the sheer size of some of them. We were in a 2 tonne van and wouldn't of liked
to have hit most of them. Unfortunately we had realised by this point that our van had done over 450,000 km and had headlights worse than a candle, this made night time
driving especially hazardous giving that we had relatively limited vision to keep an eye out for Roo's bouncing across the road.
We started out this day by visiting some or New South Wales's southern beaches starting with Tathra beach followed by Bermagui Beach and at the end of the day Mystery Bay. We also visited a couple of lakes (Bermagui and Wallaga) with the latter being in the Great BBatemans marine park. This was also the scene where Kat hit her elbow of the car door while jumping out of the van; an injury still yet to heal as I am writing this up over 4 weeks later.
The next morning we started out early we a long drive up to the Hyam's beach a beach where you can often see Dolphins. We didn't manage to see any however the beach was still nice. From here we headed into the Booderee National Park. This is where Jervis Bay is located and is the only National Park outside of Tasmania that we visited in Australia and had to pay for. It was however we worth the money with it containing beaches far better than the neighbouring and free Hyam's beach. We started out our visit here by stopping at Cave Beach (a beach which has a natural cave formation at one end of it). This was the first time we had seen Australian's in Bikini's sun bathing which was a little odd because we were still quite cold in T-shirts and trousers even though the sun was quite strong. From here we headed to the tip of the national park first stopping at Murray's beach followed shortly beach Bristol Point beach and Green Patch beach. The first two of these were fantastic and we had the second all to ourselves. The third however was a campsite and while still nice failed to live up to the first two even with the green tinge to the water. On our way to camp that night we stopped off at Seven Mile Beach (yes Australia does appear to have many off these) just as the tide was almost up cutting off the beach for a quick stop and refresher as the sun set.
That morning we had an early start as we knew the sooner we got to the Blue Mountains the more time we would have there to see the sights. We took a crazy
route in order to avoid every single toll road heading into or out of Sydney which took us through many remote towns and cities, but eventually we made it
there in good time.
On our way into Katomba we saw signs for Wentworth Falls and so went out of our way to these on route. The sight was packed as it had a small car park and
it was lunch time during the NSW school holidays. Nonetheless the site was amazing and gave us a shock welcome to the Blue Mountains. After this we headed
through down a remote pass through the mountains to our campsite at the Old Ford reserve. We had a stream running right through the campsite and only shared
this large space with one other car that night. This was also the first time we had camped in an area where we could see the night sky. To try and describe
the sky would be feeble, but if you have ever looked at the night sky at home, imagine that times 10. The entire sky was lit up by beautiful stars that we
had never seen before. Even though it was absolutely freezing that night up in the mountains it gave us an amazing experience unique to the entire trip. I
tried to capture a few photos of the night sky, but they really do not do it justice at all.
The next morning we had another early morning start, at least once we had defrosted the car we did. After we eventually made it up the dense, narrow, hairpin
littered mountain pass we headed over to Govetts Leap. It was extremely windy up here on the edge but we were absolutely gob-smacked by the view of the canyon
and torrenting waterfall. This stop smashed the falls from the day before and was not even a must see thing, we just ended up stopping there as it was on route
to Echo Point. After this we headed onto to Echo Point and the Three Sisters (Blue Mountains number 1 tourist draw). Thankfully it wasn't too busy and we enjoyed
another beautiful view before we headed onto our campsite for the night. Unfortunately upon leaving the car park here a car tried to squeeze past us as we were
reversing and they scraped the side of their car all the way down our rear tail bar. Thankfully for us we had the solid bull bar and the owner of the other car
and fault did a hit and run since they were at fault.
That evening we drove and drove through gorgeous mountains ranges, passes and outback roads where we saw no other cars for hours before we stayed for the night in
the outback town of Broke in the town park.
Thankfully we had overdriven the day before and where therefore much closer to our site for today. This provided us with the extra time that we needed in
order to see everything that we wanted to today. We started of our visit of Nelson Bay by visiting Zenith Beach, a local beach at the base of the Tomaree
Hill where our next lookout was. The trek up the hill was much more difficult than expected and Kat moaned the whole way and complained that the view was
not worth it. She must've had a mardy on today as I'm sure you'll agree after looking at the pics. From here we headed onto One Mile Beach for a brief
stop and lunch.
After lunch we headed towards the town of Anna Bay and the Stockton sand dunes. By now it was early afternoon and we headed on foot deep into the dunes
which provided a fantastic if windy and sand pelted unique experience. One could've spent hours walking around in the dune here, but unfortunately one had
to reach camp for the night and so we headed on.
The next morning we headed out onto quite Sunday morning roads on route to Port Macquire where we planned to stay that night. On route we decided to take a detour through something known as the Lakes Way; this provided us with Smiths Lake, Blueys Beach, Boomerang Beach, Elizabeth Beach, Seven Mile Beach and Black Head These were some totally local beaches and we found the Seven Mile Beach to be one of the best of Australia, on top of this we had it all to ourselves. After this we headed onto Port Macquire where we watched humpback whales migrate towards Antarctica from the lighthouse.
We started off the day we a random stop at Nambucca Heads since we had nothing much planned. Boy were we glad we stopped as the Heads were made up
of lots of individual sand islands which one could canoe around and on top of this there was two great beaches and a long wall which residents had
painted uniquely.
From here we decided to head on a long drive out to the Dorrigo National Park and back round to our campsite that night. The drive led to fantastic
views even if the van did really struggle with some of the steep climbs. We had a lookout over the rainforest to the sea before enjoying lunch and
heading on to our camp for that night. On the way to camp that night we got lost in a city with no road signs and Kat had to hop out and ask an
Australian Hill-billie with no teeth who was cutting down a tree with sheers directions. It took her six attempts to get the right directions since
she thought he was speaking something over than English and gave different directions the last three times, but eventually we were on the road to
Lawrence. When we arrived in Lawrence Park (our campspot) for the night we were welcomed by the end of a beautiful sunset over a pristine village lake.
The next morning we had to board the early morning free car ferry across the lake to the neighbouring city a short drive on the other side. This was an interesting experience in a large rental van. From here we headed onto the Evans Head lookout were we could still see whales migrating and dolphins playing in sea and onto Lennox Head before we eventually reached the heaving town of Byron Bay. Byron Bay had the most traffic we saw in the whole of Australia. We really struggled to park and had to pay for parking and walk a way to the sites. Nonetheless we still managed to see the main sites of Clarkes Beach, Wategos Beach and we took a long beautiful cliff walk to Australia's most easterly point. From here we headed on to our final campsite in New South Wales.
Having smashed through another state in only 7 days we were surprised by how much we had seen and how much variation there was both from what we had seen in the state of Victoria and from what we had really been expecting to see during our Coast to Coast drive. Essentially the little things we had been doing and the detours had made the journey into something neither of us has expected. From here we continued on with our road trip and headed into the state of Queensland.
Next Page
