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Published: June 12th 2013
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For our trip up the East coast we needed a car, so we decided to begin the search in April, which meant that if we bought one early, we could take a few road trips in the areas surrounding Sydney that we probably wouldn’t be passing on our travels later on. We budgeted around $2000 between us for the car, which would need to include rego (which is kind of like the UK equivalent to registration, tax and MOT all in one) and some third party insurance (just in case!). We found a place called ‘Best Buy Autos’ in Campbelltown (Western Sydney) that had a few second hand cars going pretty cheap, so we took a train down there – not a short journey at around an hour and a half on the train!
We had a browse around the cars and there were a couple that were within our budget and had a good few months rego left on them, which would at least last the rest of our trip with a bit left over which would help when trying to sell it when we leave. We eventually settled on a white 1999 Ford Falcon AU, which cost us
just $1300, leaving us with a bit of spare money to buy the insurance, some breakdown cover and then a bit left over just in case anything goes wrong during the trip! We navigated our way back to Bronte with the aid of google maps, quickly getting used to the automatic transmission (never driven an auto before but it’s pretty awesome!) and found a parking spot just opposite our apartment. So far the car seems fine – mechanically there are absolutely no problems, although there are a few issues with the electronics – the front windows don’t open and we don’t have any sort of radio/cd player! Thankfully the back windows open manually and we have our phones armed with plenty of music to keep us entertained! It’ll do anyway! We named her Sheila (I know – very original) and we’re sure that she will do just fine to get us where we need to go!
Now that we had our car we were able to start going on a few trips on the weekends. Our first trip was back out to the Blue Mountains as we loved it so much the first time! It was great being able
to go where we wanted and not have to wait around for trains or buses, and we spent a great day just driving around Katoomba and the surrounding areas, and just picking random lookouts to drive to. We actually discovered a great lookout which the trolley that we took last time didn’t go to, which we quickly decided was our favourite spot in the Blue Mountains for an amazing 360 degree view – you literally feel like you’re on top of the world!
Our next trip was to Featherdale Wildlife Park – a cute little interactive zoo containing lots of indigenous Australian animals that you were able to feed and pat. We spent a good few hours walking around and feeding kangaroos and wallabies, and also patting the odd koala (which kind of feel a bit like sheep I guess!). There were also various animals such as wombats, lots of birds including different kinds of parrots, cockatoos, kookaburras and MASSIVE emu’s that were just walking around (!!), dingoes, crocodiles, bats, lots of creepy crawlies and reptiles amongst others!
We then had a drive down on a lovely Sunday morning to Jervis Bay, home of the white sand beaches
– some of the whitest in the world in fact! It was about a 3 hour drive down there but it was a gorgeous drive down – you can’t really complain about winding roads around rolling hills and farmland, over bridges above huge clear rivers, and along rugged coastline, passing through little picturesque villages as we went – perfect! We arrived at Jervis Bay and parked up next to one of the beaches, having read online about a walk that you can take along the coast. We proceeded to follow the ‘White Sands Walk’ trail, which weaved around trees and bushland and occasionally leading you out to some of the most beautiful beaches that we had ever seen! Luckily for us, even though it was a lovely warm sunny day (which were getting all the more rare now that we were getting into Winter – it was late May by this point!), the beaches were pretty much empty! We passed about 5 beaches and we saw maybe 10 people altogether! We can only imagine what these beaches might look like on a sunny Sunday in the UK! After a few hours (and after enjoying the picnic that we brought with
us!) we made it back to the car and set off back to Sydney, making a stop in the town of Kiama, where we enjoyed an ice cream and watched a bit local rugby/football/whatever the hell they like to call it over here!
Our final trip was to Palm Beach, which is the location at which they film the beach scenes of Home and Away! This was about an hour north of Sydney, which meant that we got to drive over the harbour bridge, which was pretty cool! We arrived there and had a walk around some stalls of a little market that was on, and then made our way up to the famous fence that everyone in Summer Bay seems to go and stand by when they need to have some sort of conversation (seriously, they always stand there don’t they?!). Whilst resisting the urge to blast out the theme tune, we took a few photos and enjoyed the views of the beach, which looks EXACTLY like it does on the TV (not sure why we thought it might look any different but it’s always very exciting to be somewhere that you recognise from a show that’s been
on for so long!) – even the slight mist that always seems to be there was lingering around!
So there you have it – we have now left Sydney and have started our travels up the East coast. We have really loved calling Sydney our home for the last 7 months - it really is a beautiful city and a fantastic place to live, and there are so many great places to visit in the surrounding areas, we’re definitely gonna miss it now that we’re gone!
I will be adding a blog entry within the next few days to let you all know what we have been up to in Port Stephens, Coffs Harbour and Byron Bay, so until then, enjoy the photos of our trip so far!
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