We made a last minute decision to do the Blue Mountains first instead of heading straight to Sydney and it turned out to be amazing! We didn't realize we would have to take a cable ferry to get accross a river along the way and as we pulled up we were worried because we didn't have much cash on us. I was particularly pleased when we discovered it was free. We stopped for a picnic lunch just after the ferry and saw some maple trees. They really stood out because there aren't really many trees that change colour around here. We [View Full Entry]

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Big driving day as we had to make it to the Hunter Valley. We followed the Pacific Highway all the way from Nambucca Heads to Maitland, the biggest city near the valley. We found a caravan site in Cessnock, nicely situated amidst the 150 wineries in the Hunter. We got to bed early so we could start the free wine fiesta early the next day. Janis must not like wine much because she decided to die again the next morning. It must have been the cold weather, because we were super careful not to leave anything on that could have drained [View Full Entry]

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Yamba was a pretty cool little fishing town. In the morning we walked up the hill to check out the beaches and despite the foul weather there were a few people out for a surf. We left Yamba with no plans other than south. The Pacific Highway still resembled a lake so we headed inland towards Maclean. Maclean has a strong scottish heritage and still looks like a scottish country town. We wished we could have spent some time there but we were dead set on getting around the flood. We got on a road that was still technically closed (signs [View Full Entry]

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Byron is a super relaxed hippy town with money. There aren't really many folks left from the good 'ol days most of them seem like yuppies with surf boards and Volkswagen vans. But the aura is there and we loved it. We spent the first night at an isolated campervan site and decided to move the next day to something better. We tried to stay at the Arts Factory... a fairly famous hostel that actually has a recording studio and a painting studio. Unfortunately, they didn't have any van sites, only tent sites. But I'm glad we saw it. The campsite [View Full Entry]

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We headed south after Hervey Bay and stopped in Eumundi to check out the huge market. Alex loves markets and we had heard from all sorts while we were working in Mooloolaba that the Eumundi Market was great. So we stopped there to not spend any money and ended up with no cash. The stuff we bought was great. First, we grabbed a giant Bavarian style bratwurst that brought back Oktoberfest to my upper esophagus. We walked past loads of artwork that was really interesting but the fifty in our pocket wasn't sufficient. Then we saw a coffee stand and seriously [View Full Entry]

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It poured down the entire night we spent in Hervey Bay and we were starting to dread this camping trip to Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world. In the morning some of our group slept in past the meeting time of 6:30 thanks to some confusing directions on when everybody needed to wake up. The grumpy old men that ran the show took offense to this and continuously threatened to cancel our trip because some people were 15 minutes late. Needless to say, after a few shouting matches, this was not the best way to start our trip [View Full Entry]

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The next few days after the Tablelands can really be summed up as driving punctuated by interesting little towns. After Kurrimine Beach we continued south stopping in Mission Beach to take photos, in Ingham to buy Piña Colada ingredients and Taylor's Beach to drink our Piña Coladas. Taylor's Beach was really just a caravan park, so we grabbed our lawn chairs and supplies gathered in Ingham and headed for the beach. We also took our coconuts we picked up in Daintree as authentic Piña Colada cannisters. We sat and enjoyed the view and the drinks until the wall of mossies chased [View Full Entry]

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Still feeling damp from the rainforest, we drove southwest into the Atherton Tablelands to Lake Eacham National Park. The sun decided to come out slightly so we could see into the clear deep lake that was once the site of a massive volcanic eruption. All geographic formations in Australia are super old, so it isn't often very easy to see how some land formations are formed. This lake isn't one of them. It is almost perfectly circular... like a science project volcano filled with Diet Coke and Mentos. We decided to save the walk around Echam for later and search for [View Full Entry]

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The drive up to Daintree National park wasn't a long one... but it certainly was interesting. Once we cleared the gazillion roundabouts leaving Cairns the road stuck to the ocean like white on rice. The sun decided to come out a bit and the views were spectacular even when driving. But the sun only lasted for three quarters of an hour, so that as soon as we crossed the cable ferry to the National Park we had to turn our headlights on and drive about 30 km/h in the torrential rain. The road became very skinny and very wet, very quickly. [View Full Entry]

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We've finally made it to Cairns after 10 days of driving from Brisbane. After we left Eungella National Park, we returned to the coast for the rest of the trip. We were sort of in a hurry to get north so we skipped past some of the good places to stop knowing that we'd be returning down the coast along this route anyway. We passed through Proserpine and Bowen looking for grocery stores but this being a public holiday we had no luck until we found a great fruit & veg store on the outskirts of Bowen. We stocked up with [View Full Entry]

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