Stop, Revive Survive!

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We spent our final day in Singapore by having the obligatory Singapore Sling at the Raffles hotel. We, as just about every other tourist, grabbed a seat and the bored waitress took one look at us and said, ‘2 Singapore slings?’ to which we both nodded and agreed. During our time there we watched this process occur 3 or 4 times. This is then quickly followed by the tourists including us, requesting a picture taken with their drinks. We sipped and munched on the free monkey nuts whilst casually tossing the shells on to the floor. Amy was a little disturbed by the birds that were darting in and out of the room. With our drinks finished and the bill settled - enough to feed us for the whole day - we headed off to post our fourth box of bits home.

The MRT to the airport was a breeze and the check in girl just smiled when I asked if we could have a free upgrade - I’ve decided to try it on for every flight with the theory that you don’t get if you don’t ask!

The flight (8hrs) gave us ample opportunity to catch up on some much needed screen time. Unfortunately I only managed 3 films on this flight but to both of our delights they did serve potato as part of the meal - yum!

We landed and collected our bags and joined the queue to declare that we were carrying a Christmas pudding and some gummy bear sweets! We felt a little stupid but they are pretty strict about quarantine and what can and can’t be brought in. It helped a little that even if you headed to the nothing to declare section you still have to have your bag x-rayed and the queue to ‘not declare’ was even longer than ours.

Outside the airport we joined 3 others in a minibus for the trip into central Sydney. One of the girls was from Canada, and it was the first time she had seen a right hand drive car, and was pretty excited about seeing it! Our driver was a character, and on several occasions we went down one way roads in the wrong direction - he kept saying, ‘ we are going one way, the wrong way!’

We had booked dorm accommodation online, and we checked in. We were pleased to hear that we had been upgraded from a 10 person dorm to one with only 6. We went up to dump our bags and have a shower after a night on the plane with no sleep, only to find a room that was comparable to that of belonging to a scummy student. There was stuff everywhere, half empty coke bottles incubating I don’t know what, and used cotton buds in the bathroom. We both took one look at it and decided to forego a shower.

We went for a stroll about Sydney, walking through the Botanical Gardens, spotting more wildlife in half an hour, than we saw in Asia in our 3 months there - I suppose it is because they don’t eat it here! We caught our first glimpses of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House - Images that you have seen so many times on television, or in magazines, and it was surreal to be standing in front of them.

We started to review our options, with both of us not keen to go back to the hostel. Rob made a call to some friends that live in Sydney who kindly offered to put us up for the night. This was the address to which our camping gear was being sent, so we thought we could get that, hire a car and then go and explore a bit more of Oz. The parcel however needed to clear customs and quarantine before it could be delivered. With it being close to five, we couldn’t move this process along that day. The next day the boys got up early to drive to Melbourne - we could have got a ride with them but decided to go and get our parcel released from DHL. We took a taxi to the airport, finally located the right office, and were given the paperwork that needed to be taken to customs. Customs was located at the international airport, so Rob went off on the train, whilst I sat in domestic arrivals with our two bags. After nearly two hours, he returned without a smile - he had got the stamp of approval from customs, but quarantine wouldn’t clear it because there was a tent and that may have soil on the tent pegs. We have only put up the tent once - in the back garden!

It was late on Friday afternoon by now, so there was no way of getting our camping stuff. We headed back into Sydney a bit cheesed off, trying to decide what to do with our time. We checked into some accommodation - no more dorms for us! We then rushed out to see if we could hire a campervan for the following day. We were in luck, as they only had one available.

The next morning we were up early raring to go! We needed to get the $30 key deposit back, but the guy was not on reception, and he was not answering his phone. After 45 mins he appeared and we could get on our way.

We picked up ‘Cassie the Camper’, and headed out of Sydney, with an aim of getting a reasonable distance to the north, and then mooching our way back down. The first day we drove to Coffs Harbour, spent the night there but not really seeing anything as it was dusk when we arrived! We enjoyed cooking our first meal for ourselves - steak, boiled potatoes and salad. (Not a grain of rice was eaten during our trip in Cassie!)

The next day was spent doing a significant amount of driving - we made it to Caloundra and decided that we were far enough north for us to start making our way back down. We went for an enjoyable walk along the beach, we ran out of energy before the length of beach ended.

The following day we drove to Southport, and then we drove to Surfers Paradise. The weather was not too great at this point, with torrential downpours. We were glad that we were not pitching our tent on a daily basis! With the weather grey, there was nothing for it, but to have chips by the sea.

The next night we slept at Coolangatta, and enjoyed a nice walk along the beach, watching the surfers. The weather had improved although it couldn’t have been any worse! We were treated to a pod of dolphins leaping out of the water around the surfers. It was a great sight and made even better that we managed to capture a leap on camera!

Byron Bay was our next stopping point - it was busier than any of the other places, and at the campsite we had to sign a lot of rules and regulations promising we wouldn’t trash the place! The place was full of hippies! We spent some of the day sunbathing, but the sun here is so intense that you have to slap on the sun cream like there is no tomorrow.

We returned to Coff’s Harbour, this time in the daylight and were able to enjoy the beach. We decided to get up early the following morning, to see the sunrise (we had attempted it once before but it had been cloudy). This was possible despite the purchase of our second 4 litre box of rose wine we had started the night before. The 4 litres cost about 4 pounds - bargain and its drink-ability was vastly improved by sticking it in the freezer section of our mini fridge!

From Coff’s we meandered our way to Nambucca Heads. We parked up and strolled along the river towards its mouth along a board walk. Nambucca heads is famous for having its rock break water painted with people's names. Unfortunately we had no paint and if any local is reading this then we would have bought a small tin and a few brushes if there had been a van there with a guy selling / renting the stuff- it’s a sure fire business opportunity.

Back at the van we made breakfast and chilled out with a bowl of fruit, yogurt and an awesome vista. It is only a short drive here from Coff's so we moved on towards South West Rocks.

This had a lovely sheltered beach which was full of kiddies trying to out do their dads efforts at a sand castle. The nearest campsite was a little of the beaten track so we decided to keep on driving.

We finally called it quits for the day at Crescent Head. Crescent has a huge beach which we wandered along for almost an hour before we decided we really should turn back. Whilst wandering along beaches it gives us fantastic amounts of inspiration for business opportunities/ money making schemes. Unfortunately you will all have to wait and see if any of them pan out when we get home. The surf wasn’t great at Crescent so we were unable to partake in our hobby of surf photography. The next day started with Rob waking at 6am and heading out to see if he could get some cool pics of another east coast sunrise. Surprise surprise it was cloudy!

Next stop on our road trip was Port Macquarie. The camp site was right by the estuary. We treated ourselves and had oysters - a first for both of us. They were dirt cheap and really tasty. Definitely an experience that we will repeat in the future but it is doubtful we will ever get another dozen for less than 6 pounds!

We struggled to decide on our next destination - We considered Hunter Valley for a spot of wine tasting but decided that we were going to do wine tasting in New Zealand so it could wait for a couple more weeks. It would also have been a little rushed and the amount of ‘tasting’ would have been limited due to the need to drive the next day.

In the end we plumped for the Blue Mountains which are about 100km outside of Sydney to the south west. We were currently north east so it was a huge 500 km drive to get to the mountains. We checked out the map and decided on a ‘short cut’. As my luck stands it was anything but quick! The route we had chosen was basically a country lane. It wound its way up towards the mountains. Just before we had entered the windy section Amy had decided that she wanted to drive. She was less than happy after 2 hours about her decision long with every mad motorbike rider hurtling past on the blind bends! As our luck would be it was totally clouded by the time we got to the Blue Mountains and we could not see a thing from the view point on the ‘floodlit’ walk. We hoped that the next day would be better.

We had worked it that we would have a whole day to spend at the mountains and it was cool to crash out that night safe in the knowledge that there was no driving to be done the next day.

We awoke to beautifully clear skies, and the sun was shining. We walked back along what was the floodlit walkway at night, to see the most fantastic views of the mountains. The only shame was that they have put in a sky train which has a cable that runs across, spoiling the view - How did they ever get planning permission for that?!

We enjoyed a pleasant walk around to one of the lookouts, only to find this was the point where bus loads of tourists are dropped off for their 20 minutes of seeing the mountains. We had almost forgotten that we were at a tourist attraction before that point, as we had passed so few people. We walked on further to the giant staircase and made our way down the steps into the valley - We were grateful that we were walking down them! We walked along the valley and found ourselves at the bottom of the world’s steepest incline railway. We decided to carry on walking for a bit more before making our way back up. As you can imagine, many photographs were taken, and each time you got a glimpse of the view again you found yourself having stopped walking.

We took the railway back up to the top - It really was steep! You started off in the carriages almost lying down, but once you were moving up the incline you were sitting up normally. It was good fun.

The following morning was our last with ‘Cassie Camper’, so we gave her a good clean down, to make sure she was in a suitable condition for returning. Rob, ever eager to get more photos (I am the one that will have to put them in an album!), went out to look at the view again, to find that it was mostly obscured by cloud. So another handful of photos were taken.

On our way back to Sydney we made a small detour to a wildlife park with the sole purpose of getting up close to some kangaroos and koalas. We had spent a lot of our hours on the roads looking for kangaroos, and not counting the few dead ones at the side of the road had almost given up hope of seeing any. We were sure that they were hiding on purpose, or only inhabited areas on the right hand side of the road, so the passenger couldn’t spot them! We did spot a few wild ones on our penultimate day- Rob still thinks that they were big rabbits in fancy dress!

The wildlife park was great, and we were able to stroke the koalas, and got some food to feed the kangaroos with. It was dried food in an ice-cream cone - they were more interested in the ice-cream cone! We gave them a good stroke, and are now pondering the merits of having a kangaroo over a puppy on our return……

Cassie was navigated back into Sydney and returned. We wandered down to the Harbour to have a look at the Queen Mary that had come in earlier in the day - she was big! We were staying with the boys again so made our way on the train to their neck of the woods, only to find that we didn’t have their contact number with us. Rob was insistent that I had lost it! We tried to call a taxi as we could remember their address, but the taxi company did not accept calls from payphones. Another couple of people were looking for a taxi and ordered one for us too on their mobile phone. We waited, but nothing arrived.

In the end Rob headed over to a local estate agent to see if they had a local map of the area so we could double check in which direction we would have to walk, but they didn’t have a map. What they did have, was an employee who lived in the same area and was about to finish for the day, so we got a lift back to the boys house- result! Rob later found the number - it was in his bag all along!

With our Oz adventure almost over, we spent the last day which flew past, at Manly. It was a gorgeously hot day, and we could watch children having their PE lesson on the beach - I might have participated more in PE if I could have been out in the sun on the beach! It was along here that Rob could not resist taking the picture of the lady in here Nike swimwear - What an advertisement!

Next blog will be from New Zealand - Country number 7, where we hope to hire a spaceship!

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