2005 Australia
"the only certainty that there is, is that nothing is certain"
We continued our visit of australia
taking this time the ocean road instead of the inside road. We stop along the
way at Port Stephen beach and drove on the beach and camp on the dune for one
night . This was quite an adventure putting up the tent after 10 months. It was
quite windy and the sand was blasting all around. We had to put sand at the
bottom of the outside shell of the tent to keep the sand out. The next morning
was a great sunny day. No more wind so we took our coffee outside au naturel
because we were all alone. When we got up to make breakfast we hears cheering as
a groups of 4X4 was passing . We had to cover ourselves.
We ate then broke camp and went to a
nude beach close by. It was Gracie first time at a nude beach but she did it as
was quite natural.
We continued going north and on the freeway we saw that they put wire over so
the wildlife could cross the highway without any problem.
We generally prefer when we have the time to travel the small road. We did that and stopped at a pistachio farm along the way. For the night we found a nudist retreat close by where we pitched our tent.
The next day we stop
at "Timbertown" and we were arguably surprise by the display.
A lot time we thy hype was not worth
the trip. We saw some bullock team and a reconstruct village.
We then stopped at a winery and tasted a few of their wine
That night we bush camped in a national
forest. The following day we went back to the ocean and saw a seawall that was
all painted by graffiti. Some were quite elaborate and we chose to had a small
mark of our passage.
We the went up the plateau to visit the
Dorrigo National Park.
This tropical rainforest is on the world heritage site list. It was a bit cold
and rainy at the top of range, so the visibility was not good. But they build
quite a few nice suspended walkway to permit us to view the top of the tree and
the bird going around. This forest is renown for the leeches that live in his
ground.
We spent the night in a caravan park
and the next day we stop at the big Banana in Coffs Harbor.
The girls were real thrill to see it
having heard of it for so long. So we had a banana split and enjoyed the view.
We then stopped in a small town
that decided to paint the Scottish tartan on telephone pole after a view minute
we were able to find Kathy's McKewen tartan.
Our trip took us inland to Nimbin the
site of the Australian "Woodstock" , we camped there and went to The Bush
Theater and Cafe to see the movie "the Incredible".
After visiting Nimbin the next day we
drove to the Cape Byron The eastern most point of Australia, we then drove in
Queensland drove true the "Gold Coast" a Miami like city build to impress your
neighbor. We continued north pass Brisbane and found a place to bush camp in the
state forest north west of it.