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Yes, I'm finally on the move. At the moment I'm in Port Macquarie, about halfway between Sydney and Brisbane. It's a nice little sea-side town named after the former governer (1810-1821) of the penal colony in Australia, Lachlan Macquarie. He was the first of the governers who made an active effort to shape the colony into something more than a basic prison and he's responsible for many of the first proper buildings in Sydney, like a hospital, barracks for the inmates working there, churches, etc. Many of these still remain in Sydney today.
When I last put up a report I was still in Sydney being generally rained upon and unfortunately that continued for quite a while. It rained every day for 11 days straight which was a record, the first time in 15 years that had happened and the first time in 77 years it had happened in April. Then it rained for another 3 days so I guess that probably made it the rainiest autumn in recorded history, great stuff!
I spent most days looking for cars and just hanging out, walking around town during the times when it wasn't raining. It didn't rain all the time,
just every days at least a couple of times. After a few days Danielle, a girl I had met during my first week in Sydney came back from her trip to New Zealand and I helped her a bit with getting settled into Australia and getting all the paperwork sorted. We also sat in the park quite a lot watching the big chess game (which is a lot more fun than it sounds) and even visited the Art Museum of NSW.
After she left I finally caught a break and saw an add online for a Landcruiser Diesel with all the bits I needed. I met up with the owners after the weekend for a test drive and we came to an agreement on the spot. After a few days to transfer funds into their accounts, the big beast was finally mine! I wasted no time and drove straight over to Frank's house where we started work on the car.
Over the next five days we modified bits of the car, putting spotlights, rodholders and a bracket for the high-jack on the bullbar, creating a loading and mounting system for the boat, reviving the spare wheel storage system
underneath the car and mounting a CB radio inside. We also had some trouble with starting the engine which turned out later to be a problem with the glow plugs that pre-heat the engine when it is cold so it will start. Apparently some of them are broken so at the moment I have to inject the air filter with a type of ether which ignites upon trying to start the engine and thereby heats it up. It is aptly named 'Start ya Bastard'. Obviously this will have to be fixed but I can probably do this myself and so far the garages I have come across were all booked solid for at least a week anyway.
Frank turned out the be a legend, he had a lot of the stuff I wanted to get anyway, as well as being able to weld and create items for the car. He spent a lot of time and effort on the car and it was great fun to work with him on it. I also became instant friends with his 5 month old Jack Russell, Meg.
So after these days of measuring twice and cutting once, I was mostly ready
to go. I just needed to do a lap around Sydney to pick up all my gear from various people and I needed to get an outboard motor from somewhere. Luckily Jumpy (who I went marlin fishing with) knew a guy who had a beautiful 2005 6 horsepower Yamaha 2-stroke for sale for a reasonable amount of money so I stayed with him for one night and we went to pick it up the next day. After another quick stop at Frank's house for some stuff I had forgotten, I was finally off north towards Newcastle, intent to arrive before dark. Of course I got delayed left and right and didn't quite make it to Newcastle but that was fine. I found a campsite somewhere halfway, put up my tent with relative ease and froze to death at night. Jesus but it gets cold once the sun goes down!
The next day after getting some small problems with the car looked at (and figuring out the reason it wouldn't start, as stated above) I drove up to Port Stephens, to the little town of Anna Bay and the beautiful campground/hostel called Melalouka Backpackers. Here I met up with Jurjen
and his girlfriend Dorien, friends from back home. They're in Australia for about eight weeks and are currently traveling from Melbourne to Cairns in a Wicked van.
Even though I haven't really been gone that long, it was good to meet up with one of my best friends from back home, especially since we've been on holiday together quite a bit and I was glad to be able to share some of this one with him, even if it was only a few days.
We spent two days in Port Stephens and then went up to Myall Lakes National Park where we tried (unsuccessfully) to catch fish from the boat. They'd had rains there for about a week solid and the lakes had risen to the point where the ferry was out of order. The water was a murky brown and there wasn't a fish in sight. However we did get to build a fire and cook our dinner on it, which for me really brought on the feeling of being on holiday. The next day we continued north to Crowdy Bay NP where we had a really nice campground by the beach which was also home to
a great number of kangaroo who regularly came by for a quick look. It's hard to forget you're in Australia when you've got a roo sitting in on your campfire conversation!
The next day it was time to part ways again. Jurjen and Dorien have to start making some miles now as they have to be in Cairns in around three weeks whereas I have a bit more time for the East-Coast and my plans are a little different anyway.
Since I met up with them a little bit earlier in my trip than originally intended (mainly due to my somewhat extended stay in Sydney) I haven't had time to get organized yet and have spent the past days packing and unpacking the car, trying to find things and realizing I didn't have all the bits and pieces I wanted. So today I've spent buying stuff I want as well as some other containers to reorganize it all. It will probably be a few days yet before I am truly organized but I'm getting there. At the moment the car is just packed completely full but I do eventually need to be able to take people along!
I'm not 100% sure of my plans from here on out. I had intended to go inland for a bit and visit some people that I know there but I have to say that the unseasonably cold nights (I heard someone in the caravan next to me last night complain "I can't believe it's this cold at this time of year") are making me want to shoot up north a bit faster. I love camping and being outside but with the cold comes damp and it's just bloody uncomfortable. Since I'll have time to see this part of Australia at the beginning of next year after I return to Sydney, I might just skip it for now and head towards Byron Bay and (hopefully) warmer nights in Queensland.
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Ron (Accra)
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Hi there, good to see you on the move, and nice to see you've made so many friends out there (human and otherwise)! Drive safely, look out for the salties when fishing in that little boat, and gave a cold beer on me!