We got the van and we are off!

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So we left St Leoanrds weighed down with much more stuff that it seemed we came with, but at least we are on the way to pick up the van so we wont have to be carrying it around anymore as there is loads of room for it in the car. We arrived to pick it up around lunchtime but by the time we had gone over to register it in our name and done some washing it was 6 o'clock before we even set off out of Sydney on our way to Cronulla which the bloke who sold us the van said there was a campsite at. It was only a half hour drive so we figured we would have time to go and get sheets and pillows when we arrived.

Well it didnt take us long to find the place but the problem was we imagined a nice campsite on (or near) the surfing beach but this one was in a residential street being overlooked by some sort of factory. Needless to say we moved on.... So by the time we reached (and found without any maps) the centre of the town we were faced with either sleeping on a street somewhere in the van with no sheets, pillows or anything to put up at the windows, or find a hotel. Well Cronulla is not very big and we did find one hotel but the only room they had left was so expensive and we really only needed to stay until early before we were heading off so I broke my rule again and we stayed at, you guessed it, A HOSTEL....

Now I know rules are meant for breaking and when we got there it all seemed ok, it wasnt too full and we had a whole dorm room to oursleves, it was St Patricks day and everyone seemed happy so we figured what could go wrong. We went for something to eat and thought we would get a few beers before heading back to the hostel, well at 10 o,clock Cronulla shut, nothing was open and so a little disappointed we went back to the hostel and watched a DVD. All seemed well and we fell asleep before midnight, maybe I was wrong and hostels really weren't that bad.....

But no around 2 o'clock all hell broke loose as what sounded like the entire Irish population living in Austalia arrived back at the hostel and decided to let us know just how much fun they were having and just how drunk they were. I spent the next hours until around 5 am listening to these idiots, getting more and more frustrated. Not only were they loud on the floor we were on, it seemed like they also were staying above us so when they finally turned of the music and stopped dancing in the TV room they went upstairs to upturn beds and wake up other people in the room and shout out the window at more people coming back from the city who then seemed to start the party all over again.

As you can imagine we left early, and the owner of the hostel was not happy, it was his birthday and he was really annoyed at the blokes as he had just got them jobs which of course they didnt turn up to cause they were too drunk. We asked him how many people were involved as it seemed like the whole hostel but apparently it was only 4 blokes and they werent even Irish they were English...well I felt a bit bad and bought the hostel manager a birthday card to restore his faith that all English people are not like that.

So not many pictures for this blog as the camera was in the car the whole time. One good thing about staying here was that we found an advert for a secluded hut in the national park that we are going to stay at for the next two nights. It is technically as hostel as it is owned by YHA but surely this one has to be good as it is in the middle of nowhere......

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Photos

The Van
Our home for the next three months