The Adventure Continues...: Heading up the East Coast!

Our drive to Sydney was…uninteresting. I find it mind boggling that you can drive 22 hours and see nothing. The country is comparable in size to the United States and I can’t think of anywhere in our country where you could drive 22 hours and see nothing. The towns we came across were very tiny, and they were far and few between. Most of the cities in Australia are on the coast, people live on the coast, but inland there isn’t much of anything going on. We drove north of Sydney since we will be spending a week there at the end of our trip. We drove through the Blue Mountains on our way. Unfortunately, it was raining and we were in the clouds so we didn’t see too much and hiking wasn’t an option, but an enjoyable ride after our long drive of unchanging scenery.

On our way out of the mountains we stopped at one of the free campgrounds which was basically a parking lot of a café, but sufficient enough. There was another van with three peeps there so we sat with them all night exchanging stories. The three of them had been in Australia for six months. They originally all came to find work, but with the market of zero jobs they decided to give farming a shot. The couple had done farm work for about a month then bought a van and have been traveling since and the other guy had worked on four different farms since his time here. The stories they shared from working on the farm were incredibly interesting. Once they got lost in the woods while trying to find a cow that had broke its leg, they were there to take him out of misery, the sun went down so they sat in the dark woods lost until the drunk farmer came to find them. The guy said he worked in the outback so these people were loopy, they would just be driving down the road and pull out there gun and start shooting at birds, emus, kangaroos. This of course caught Mark’s attention and we were beginning to wonder if this is something we should do. After talking to them all night we decided it wasn’t for us at this point, but maybe someday.

We finally arrived at the coast and headed north. The coast is full of small beach towns. They are beautiful, fun, and relaxed towns. We’ve been stopping and staying in all the towns along the way. We have been able to find free camping along the route which is awesome. We did some wine tasting...amazing, and ate our body weight in chocolate and fudge! We stopped at one beach to see some sand dunes and got talking to the lifeguard. It isn't whale season currently, but he said he just saw some whales passing by (probably running late, he thought maybe issues with the calf). They were breaching like five minutes before we got there, but they didn't do it when we were there. But, we did get to see them come up for air, incredible! The other day we took a road we had read about in the guide book called “Waterfall Way.” It brought us into the mountainous rainforests, which I didn’t even know Australia had. We did a couple hikes and saw some beautiful waterfalls. The second largest waterfall in Australia was dried up, but we got to see the massive gorge… pretty stunning!

I should mention when we did our very long hike in the Grampians we attempted to hitchhike back from the little town to the campsite, only another mile, but we were exhausted. No one would pick us up. It was crazy. We looked normal (I think?) and we were in a national park. I've done it in our national parks numerous times. People start hikes that end up elsewhere and they need a ride back to their car. No biggie right.. well not so much here. Anyway, about a half mile left someone finally picked us up and we were VERY grateful. So, when we passed a hitchhiker

in one of the little towns I insisted we pick him up. We need good karma, and we know what it's like. After a few minutes I convinced Mark and we picked up the guy. He was very nice. He was trying to get to his girlfriends house in the next town, he was hanging with friends in this town and having a jolly time, I imagine from his breath they were all unable to drive after the alcohol intake, thus the ride. He told us about some great places. In fact we were headed to a town where there were flying foxes in the trees. He told us all about them and gave us tips. We did end up seeing them. They are massive! Like bats on roids. Thousands of them. Very cool. Anyway, after we dropped him off it couldn't have been five minutes later we saw a lady on the side of the road hitching. Again, I insist. KARMA! So we pick her up and this, well, was a different experience. She was headed to the next town for a very "special package." Her license had gotten taken away by the police. After we dropped her off we decided we may be a bit more choosy of the hitchers we pick up. We were both convinced the package she was getting was full of drugs, but who knows?! We have just arrived in Byron Bay where we are planning our adventures/excursions for the next couple of weeks… let’s see where this takes us!