Just to put things into perspective, after Fraser Island, we had 4 days to get from Airlie Beach to Aunty Jane’s house in Northern Sydney which is approximately 1500km which was a long distance to cover in that time and try to enjoy ourselves!
Day 1 Brisbane
We woke up the day after our tour, bearing in mind the weather had been fantastic the whole time we were away, and the weather was terrible. We did have ideas to go to Noosa Heads, another surf spot, for today but the weather made us change our plans and continue down Hwy 1 to Brisbane.
It rained all the way and we checked into our holiday park around 2pm. Reluctantly we headed out on the bus to Brisbane to take a look around. It was still raining and by the time we had got into Brisbane centre it was 4pm so many of the attractions were closing, so we spoke to a visitor information helper and he suggested that the only thing for us to do was to go for a ride on the river catamaran. We did exactly that :)
These were the only two pictures we could get as the rain was so bad, we couldn’t take pictures from the inside of the catamaran as it was all steamed up inside. The picture on the right was the only one of many that has come out ok from taking pictures on the outside of the catamaran, but the poor camera and Naomi got a battering lol!
We pottered around the city centre but the rain was getting heavier so we choose to walk to the bus stop. Fortunately the very beautiful town hall was on the way, so we stopped off and admired, looking forward to seeing it the next day.
By the time we got off the bus, the rain was coming down ridiculously hard. The holiday park we were staying at was very close to a shopping parade, and it was cheap pizza night at Dominoes, so we headed there for some food and rain coverage. We ended up in there for 2 and 1/2 hours chatting to another backpacking couple who were also taking refuge from the rain. Eventually we had to give in and all make it back to the holiday camp. The road that lead up to our campervan was more like an ankle deep river and every item of clothing was absolutely drenched! This carried on all night long!
Absolute wash out of a day!
Day 2
We got up early to try to sort out ourselves from the day before. We put our clothes and jackets out to dry while getting ready to head into Brisbane to hopefully see some more of the city. Fortunately the weather was a lot clearer today, however the big problem now was that we had found out it was a Queensland Bank Holiday to celebrate the Royal Queensland Show (like a country show), so many things were going to be shut today. It was our only full day to explore Brisbane, so we thought to hell with it and just headed in anyways.
Our bus took us straight into the Southbank which housed the Brisbane Cultural Centre. We headed into the Brisbane Museum, which taught us all about Aboriginal culture, the animals native to Australia and also about some of the modern feats of magnitude by Australians.
We then walked over the bridge into the city centre and were excited to see what Brisbane looked like in daylight, and to be quite honest, we were very disappointed. There had obviously been a huge influence and influx of buildings made in the 70s and 80s, so it looked like a concrete jungle :(
So we thought it would be nice to go to the Botanic Gardens to get away from all the concrete. On the outskirts of the botanic gardens is the state parliament and a beautiful array of townhouses built at the end of the 19th century. Starting to look up!
The piece du resistance in the botanic gardens the weeping figs walkway. Beautiful, ancient, weeping trees that made us feel like we were back in England.
We did try to go to a few other places today, but they were all shut due to bank holiday.
The biggest disappoint was that the town hall was shut for renovations till 2012, and the town hall has the best viewing gallery of Brisbane. But bearing in mind that most of the buildings we had seen that day were concrete anyways, we weren’t sure if the view would even have been that good lol!
As it was bank holiday and everything shut early today, all we could do was head back to our campervan and chill for the evening! We actually had a very early morning the next day too as we had to get to Byron Bay for midday for a surf lesson!
Day 3 Byron
So we left early and drove pretty effortlessly to Byron. The sun was still shining fortunately, but the further south we got, the windier it was getting. On the up side, at least with wind we knew there would be surf :)
We were picked up in the afternoon by our Gerard Depardeau (sp??) looking, eccentric instructor. He took us down to a good beginners beach in Ballina where the surf was around 1 foot. The wind was strong but initially nothing to worry about.
We learnt the technique on the sand and then headed out into the cold water! The waves didn’t look too big, but the problem was the wind that was travelling at some speed and causing there to be waves which traversed the direction we were surfing in. Very difficult to learn how to balance on a board when there are waves in both directions.
But of course, regardless of the conditions, Chris managed to stand up first time. Naomi took a bit longer as she kept forgetting her co-ordination and would just flounce off the board lol!
Over the course of the first hour of our lesson, the wind was picking up even more and the waves were slowly getting bigger. We were now surfing 3-4 feet waves, but every 10th wave, there was a freak wave of approx 5 feet, which when you are beginners, freaks the bejesus out of you lol!
By the end of the afternoon, apart from being very cold, we were happy with our efforts. We had learnt to surf officially and had very much enjoyed it :)
No pictures of the surfing as funnily enough we didn’t have time for cameras :)
That evening was spent just getting ourselves warm. Our campsite had great facilities, so a long shower and then dinner in the camp kitchen while watching Neighbours really helped our cockles warm up!
Day 4
We spent the morning pottering around Byron Bay town centre, which is very surfy/hippie! It is obviously a very chilled out way of life and we could have spent an absolute fortune in the shops here as it was the first time we had seen decent surf wear on the trip.
Thank god we had to get on the road and start our long day of driving. We needed to try to get as close as possible to Sydney so that we only had a short drive to Sydney the next morning.
We drove until sunset and then found a very scary rest area on the side of the motorway to stay overnight at. Chris tried to scare Naomi by saying all the horrible things that could happen to us while in this dodgy rest area, and that no one knew where we were, and it worked, Naomi struggled to sleep that night. Chris made amen's by cooking a gourmet malaysian chicken satay dish on our gas burner.
Day 5 Sydney
We got to Aunty Jane’s house in northern Sydney around midday. Jane was at work but Tom and Wayne were in, so we chilled out and caught up with them in the afternoon. We also caught up on laundry and emails before Jane got home.
Jane and some of her friends that we had met at her wedding had organised a meal at a Lebanese restaurant for the evening. The restaurant was more like a banquet hall with a big dancefloor in the middle. There were lots of occasions being celebrated, so we settled in at our table, ready for the long haul. Yulla was happily introducing us to the persian dishes put in front of us, when all of a sudden, in the middle of main course, the belly dancer kicked off and she was HUGE!!! Yulla even said (very loudly) that she needed to get the dancer a gym membership lol!
After main course, everyone hit the dancefloor to persian favourite persion pop tunes with a super cheesy persian DJ!!!
All in all a very fun night. It wasn’t till a week later that Jane found out this restaurant was a pick up joint for the local Lebanese lol!
Day 6
On the Sunday, we had a nice lie-in and then spent the day with the family, watching films and just enjoying each others company. Tom and Wayne helped us to plan our journey to Melbourne for the next morning (hopefully avoiding all the tolls). We had a nice pub dinner up the road in Terry Hills and then sat chatting to the wee hours!
Day 7
On Monday morning, Jane, Chris and Naomi had a nice breakfast and Jane took a look at Chris’s leg. Jane had to head off to work for 11 so we left around the same time, having a long way to cover in two days (Sydney to Melbourne – 950km on the coastal road!).
As we were in the campervan and didn’t have a toll E-Tag to get through Sydney, we had a very long detour to get to the Princes Highway on the other side of the city which would take us south.
We decided as we had the time, to take the Great Ocean Drive to Wollongong which took us through the Royal National Forest and along a very beautiful, very coastal route. We had a nice lookout lunch on the outskirts of the forest, but as we had kms to cover, we couldn’t stop for too long in too many places :(
One place Jane and Tom had told us about was Kiama, as it was famous for its blowhole. So we stopped off there for a bit, but as it had taken so long to get through Sydney and we had only covered just under 300km, we needed to get as many kms done and find a bed before dark.
We found our bed at a campsite in Batemans Bay and got an early night to set off at a decent time the next day.
Good Post! Very informative, glad that you are going to continue writing things like this!
ReplyDeleteCampervans NSW