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Published: February 15th 2014
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Welcome! We miss you all, hope we can keep you updated on our travels via this little blog. The first week or so (hard to count the days!) has been very busy getting ourselves sorted and immersing ourselves in Australian culture!
We began in Brisbane. The flights over were a bit of a killer - but I enjoyed the free films and food of course. We stayed at a nice hostel called Aussie Way Backpackers for 4 nights. Backpacks are heavy so will take some getting used to! Brisbane is separated by a big river, but there are quite a few bridges and excellent walker and cyclist roads alongside the rivers. There's a busy commercial centre with many coffee shops and sushi restaurants. It's comparable to UK cities apart from the lovely sunshine and frozen drinks! The shopping doesn't seem too expensive so that's a bonus. We decided we enjoyed the south side of the city more. There's a little man-made beach and rainforest areas, and a couple of streets filled with outdoor dining and drinking. We discovered a love for mexican food and trying local ales straight away! Surprisingly very nice and refreshing. Alice got her phone sorted (facebook
me for the number perhaps) and we worked on transferring our details to an Aus bank account. This has been a little tiresome but nice to get settled! Scott's still waiting for a phone but one is fine for now.
We got our campervan a week ago! It's a Toyota Hiace Hi-Top ( http://www.hippiecamper.com/campervan-hire-vehicles-hitop.aspx ). It's taken some getting used to as Scott hasn't driven a big van in Australia before! The handbrake was a pully under the dashboard for example, which took a while to get used to. Now we're zooming around with ease! We love our little camper home. So far we have cooked - fritata, bruschetta with avacado salsa, beautiful pasta, halloumi wraps, curry - the list goes on! Basically saving lots of pennies and we're enjoying the experience. It does get a little uncomfortable at night sometimes but we have windows and deet.
We are aiming to break up spending time on powered campervan parks and free sites. This is getting easier now we move down New South Wales as it's not restricted. The downside is then you're not in town centres but saving money! And we then try to
pick the nicest campsites. We paid 40 bucks for a big guide on all free and budge campsites under 20 dollars for the whole of Australia. Will try to get photos of the wide range of stopover sites!
So our first port of call was up towards the Sunshine Coast. The name is self explanatory! We first stayed in a seaside resort called Caloundra. This is where we continued to be amazed by how friendly and welcoming the locals are. Everybody is happy and chatty, to each other and to us. Not quite used to that! There was a beautiful market on the Sunday filled with homemade crafts and German food. The beach was impressive, a long stretch of surf and white sand. It was fairly busy here and we ate a big bowl of chips in the shade when we arrived! It was possibly the biggest small portion of chips ever! I'm surprised by how in shape people seem along the coast with portion like this.
We moved on from Caloundra down to the Gold Coast. Parts of it seemed a little brash and tacky, but we found a lovely area called Burleigh Head beach. The campsite
was right next to the beach, which was filled with people running and swimming and surfing and speedwalking with dogs and prams. This encouraged us to get up for our first 6am run along the beach! Very busy at this time, the air is cool and fresh. One night we decided to treat ourselves to some wine on the beach (though this is illegal so you see brown paper bags - we used a classy water bottle) and ended up at the best pizza place in the East of Aus, I'm guessing. It was definitely worth the money, and the tables spread out into an arcade walkway. Not sure if this would work in Accrington? We're loving discovering little places like this. The last night we slept in the car park next to the caravan park where we just stayed. Cheeky but we weren't moved on so saved a few quid there!
We then headed down towards Byron Bay, which has been much anticipated! This is a lovely cross between Newquay and Goa, with an abundance of tourists and hippies. The beaches are amazing, we stayed over a mile from the mean town but could slip onto a beach
further up and walk along. The sea is turquoise and mountains are to the west giving nice views. The evenings are busy, we spent some time in bars one night. We saw 3 live music acts who were all busking and excellent. We tried to go to Cheeky Monkeys nightclub on Simon's suggestion however door policies are surprisingly strict and Alice had no ID. We also discovered that night that we'd changed time zones without realising and had lost one hour! Caught the sun a little bit, Scott has burnt and Alice has now got 17 mosquito bites.
We then took a detour to Nimbin which is a confusing little hippie village. The locals alternative residents arrived in the 70s after a festival and have since spent time trying to legalise hemp and live sustainably. The highlight was the museum on the main straight. Nestled between shops selling scarfs and smoking products, a lot of effort has gone into it. The small rooms are filled with quotes from philosophers and aboriginal leaders. They're trying to raise awareness of peace and love and express their views on certain plants. We actually couldn't find a bottle of beer anywhere. So we
left. We then got lost in the outback and Scott was not a happy driver. Even a few miles in from the coast feels like we're in the jungle or southern USA farm states. But then we tried our second free rest stop! We were worried that we'd get kicked off but there were about 9 other campervans there. We made some grub and watched a film and all was well.
Yesterday we headed to Ballina which is a small town under Byron Bay. The weather wasn't so great (we've had odd spells of wind and rain since arriving!), but the beach was good. The surf was high and we enjoyed watching some youngsters surfing properly. Alice is still a bit scared of fish but trying her best to brave the ocean! Speaking of fish, when in Byron Bay we visited the lighthouse and as soon as we arrived the guide shouted 'big shark big shark big shark'! It wasn't too big from that high up and I wish I had binoculars. We then saw a group of dolphins and 3 turtles. Yesterday we saw a dolphin close up in Ballina that had creeped into a harbour. However we
have yet to see a Kangaroo or a Koala! Intend to visit a sanctuary or zoo soon, or even brave a nature reserve.
In Ballina we stayed in a village called Wardell. This could have easily been a location for a slasher horror, the abandoned farm next door was particularly creepy. However our hosts were lovely and the caravan park peaceful with many retirees hanging there. Scott woke at 2am to find some sort of monkey swinging around the trees above!
We're now in a town called Yamba, not sure what it's about yet. Aiming to find a free rest stop tonight and moving to Coff's Harbour tomorrow. Supposed to be nice there. Haven't bought our bongo and ukelele yet but will keep you updated!
Hope everyone back home is happy and well. We miss you all and will try to stay in touch whenever we can.
p.s. photos to follow!
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Jim O'Rourke
non-member comment
Sounds fab
Hi Al and Scott, it's great to hear from you both. Sounds pretty good so far. Glad you sorted the bank out. The camper sounds really good and I am well jell. I'm glad to hear that even Alice has had a toe in the sea. Get your foot in next, then your ankle, then the knee....etc. Though I suppose the shark bit gets you thinking!! Are there sharks everywhere? Anyway, I shall follow your blog and look forward to some photos. Enjoy yourselves and take care both of you. What a fab adventure!!! xxx