Georgia and the North Coast

So, as I sit in the Fiji airport in transit to LA, and eventually home, it seems like a perfect opportunity to try and catch up on past stories and write a blog entry or two...

Man, our road trip up the north coast feels like ages ago, although only a week and a few days have passed since we returned. In a nutshell, it was a jam-packed, rather hectic (yet relaxing) few weeks, with MANY Kilometers covered. First, the car: Georgia. We rented the station wagon with a camp stove, a tent, two sleeping pads, some dishes, and a road map included. Getting ourselves out of Sydney was a long day; we first took the bus in from Mona Vale (wedding dress in tow), I went to a fitting for my dress alterations at a shop downtown, then we caught the train out to Traveler’s Mate, got lined out on the car, directions to a grocery store and out of town, then were off. Noah did all the driving, but, especially the first bit, both of us were constantly saying out loud, “short left, lllooonnnggg right” to one another, since that is one of the strangest things about driving on the “wrong” side of the road. Noah was a rock star though and safely drove us and the car out of Sydney and up the coast. We had been thinking our first stop would be Myall Lakes National Park, since it is relatively close to the city and we knew there was camping. However, we didn’t roll into the area until near dark and were pretty sure all the camping would be filled up since it was summer holidays, so spent the first night sleeping in the back of the car parked along a random small town street...the adventure begins!!! The next morning, we moved into an official campsite in Myall Lakes, which was a relief. While here, we took this small side trip to these sand-dunes along the coast that you can walk over (maybe 2 km?) to the ocean, it was really gorgeous and the geography was totally unlike the surrounding area of the rest of the park. It will definitely be a spot that will be a picture in my head forever.

From there on up, we were go, go, go. I think we were both just so relieved and excited to be finally out on our own doing something—and not located in a city—that we just drove. Within 4 or 5 days, we found ourselves up the coast about 300 km north of Brisbane (or more? my map is not in front of me) but just south of a town called Bundaberg in little village on the ocean called Woodgate Beach. We stayed two nights in Woodgate and it felt like we were there for a week! Other than figuring how to live out of a car, navigating, getting used to driving on the left, and basically spending oh so wonderful time with one another with nothing to do, there are a million other stories to tell :). I’m not sure I have the energy for them all! We were going to stop in Brisbane for a night-twice-and actually drove in once, parked, looked for a hostel for maybe 45 minutes, then decided to get the heck out of dodge! (I’m thinking we aren’t so much city people...). Quick highlights...we stayed three days in Byron Bay, which is sort of a circus of a town, but there is a reason it is a tourist destination. We took a snorkeling trip, which was basically a new thing for Noah, but a great thing to do, the site was out in the ocean near this random rock, so different than many places I’ve snorkeled, but we saw a turtle, a sting-ray, a massive jelly-fish, and a few different kinds of non-threatening sharks. Overall, Byron was a much needed pause in our frantic driving and we had a really great stay there, plus we found the best chocolate-banana thickshake in, possibly, all of East Coast Australia (thickshake = milkshake, milkshake = flavored milk a.k.a chocolate milk etc).

Probably one of my favorite places we stayed was this tiny little national park out in the middle of nowhere, located a fair bit inland. We had changed our minds earlier in the day about where we were going to go for the next night (what else is new) and chose this place instead only because the map told us there was a campground with toilets in the park. To get there, we drove inland and the landscape became increasingly dry, baren, and sparse. We drove through a few little towns (the ONLY towns out that direction), but other than that, nothing for miles. Then, all of a sudden, BAM we took a turn off for the park and found ourselves driving on this tiny, curvy, one lane road surrounded by green jungle on both sides. It was wild. The place we camped only had a few sites and there was an incredible view of the sky with no light pollution. We layed on our back on the grass looking at the stars and started naming them, since neither of us recognize any of the stars down here with the exception of Orion. If it weren’t for both our tendencies to change plans all the time, we would have never ended up here, but are both so glad we did!!

The final specific mention I’ll make is a place called Bellingen. Matt had recommended we stop here and missed it on the way up, but managed to swing by on the way back to Sydney. We could have stayed several more nights than the two that we did. Bellingen is located near the Dorrigo National Rainforest, which is, as it sounds, a proper rainforest that we walked through. The town had this funky, relaxed feel and a river that ran through the middle of it that one can swim in, intertube down etc. We took a little side trip to an area called Never Never Creek where we drove on this little road out in the country, stopped, parked the car and wandered up a little creek full of swimming holes until we saw one we like and jumped in. We also played golf, wandered around town, watched the hundreds of flying fox bats come out in the evening and spent a fair few hours playing backgammon at the hostel. The day we left, we woke up super early so that we could make it back to Sydney the same day for my final dress fitting in the city. Talk about a hectic day! We stopped by Mona Vale, made it to the dress appointment, then headed out of town to the blue mountains for a few days before relocating back to Kristin’s for pre-wedding stuff. Now, since this entry is quite long...I’ll start from there on the next entry, just to break things up!