NSW and Victoria

Sorry it has been a long time since I filled you guys in (if you can even remember who I am). After leaving Brisbane a friend who I had travelled with from Kununurra met me with his van which we drove down to Surfers Paradise. On arriving the place was packed as the Indy Car races were being held at the weekend. This gave us the opportunity to race the van around the track - well sort of anyway. After driving around town for a while we found a campsite to stay and parked the van outside while we got some lunch. On returning I had found my small backpacker which contained all my cloths, camera and music player was gone! As was Ralfs dirty washing (they steal some strange stuff in Australia). Anyway after making a police report it was off into town to console ourselves which manly involved a small but highly random pub crawl through surfer paradise. Ending I am glad to say at the Miss Indy Car Competition which cheered us both up.

The next morning after having everything stolen there was nothing left for me to do than to buy a new surfboard and with that we headed down to Bryon Bay. After spending the day surfing we decided to have some cigars and beers on the beach before heading out for dinner and then onto a art gallery opening where we decided to consume the free wine while looking in exasperation at the price of some of the paintings they were trying to sell.

After a couple of days chilling out in Bryon Bay and testing out the new board we headed over to Nimbin (the capital of weed in Australia apparently) all I can say about Nimbin was that it was crap, however if you like all that hippy sort of stuff knock yourself out.

After moving on from Nimbin (approximate stay 1.5 hours) we headed off to Coffs Harbour where the waves were massive I decided it was not a good day to die so we headed to a campsite to spend the night. After checking out Coffs Harbour we headed onwards towards Sydney. After a night in Sydney we decided to head out to the Blue Mountains for some more camping and walking, visiting the three sisters, using a glass bottom cable car, a lot of stairs. and a train which climbed the valley wall at a ridiculous angle. We camped out in the bush and the next day visited Jenolan Caves and the Zig Zag railway. Ralf flew back to Austria when we arrived back in Sydney and I spend a couple of days in the city seeing what Sydney had to offer.

After getting a bit bored of city life I moved out to Manly, a short ferry ride from the city. Here I met up with some people I had travelled with in Queensland and moved into their hostel. I decided to settle in Manly a while and concentrate on surfing. This was all going well until I realised I hadn’t worked for about a month and a half and could probably do with an injection of funds. After a bit of hunting around I found a five-week contract at an environmental firm implementing an EMS. This worked out great as I was finished before Christmas and could enjoy the associated parties. Which at the hostel where I stayed involved a kitty of $700 with roughly $500 being spent on beer, we figured the rest should really go on food, this lead to a very enjoyable beach party, which started at 12:00 I was tucked up in bed by 10:00.

After nearly two months in Manly and meeting some great people it was time to move on. Some friend from the hostel and I decided to hire a van for a surf road trip down to Melbourne. After deciding to splash out on a 4 berth van the company had decided that they had run out of this type of vehicle so upgraded us to a six berth monster, which turned out to be great after filling up on fuel and food and surf wax we set off south following the coast and a surfers guide book to find some waves. I won’t bore you with every beach that we visited but suffice to say it was great I think the highlight for me was Wilsons Prom where the surf and Scenery were fantastic, we then moved onto Phillip Island to see some Penguins, plus the girls wanted to visit the chocolate factory. We decided to skirt around Melbourne first time around and headed straight towards Geelong and then towards Torquay and then I had to stop to see Bells Beach although the reef scared me a bit so I went surfing on a beach break along the way. We then took the van along the Great Ocean Road, the scenery was fantastic we went as far as the Twelve Apostles and then decided to do the same route back with a detour via a canopy walk with everyone enjoyed. Before heading back to Torquay and then having to drop the van back in Melbourne. I probably make it sound very short but the trip took us around 3000 km and 11 days all of which I loved.

On arriving back in Melbourne I was invited by one of my dads cousin to join them at their beach house near Phillip Island. I didn’t mind back tracking and was glad to get out of the city as the temperature hit 43 C for three consecutive days. After a week at the beach I returned to the city and spent a two weeks catching up with other friends that I had met on my travels. I am now off to Adelaide and then Alice Springs but I guess that can wait until the next blog.

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