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Published: March 31st 2010
Gullah
Parrot (not sure I can spell it!) at MallacootaWe had a lovely time in Mallacoota, such a special little place. We had dinner with some of mum's friends one night, and walked along some of the deserted beaches with them the following day. We all went for a swim and came back and only saw one other person. Fabulous. We were very chilled when we packed up the car on Sunday night ready to head off. Sadly that was not to last!
The first disaster was the weather, as soon as we got into bed on Sunday all hell broke loose. I have not heard a storm like it for ages, thunder, lightening, wind and crazy rain. It did not bode well! It was still raining quite a bit in the morning but we had to make it back up to Seal Rocks up above NSW by Wednesday so we set off. We did not even make it down the drive! I pulled down my sun visor and was suddenly eyeball to eyeball with a monster of a spider! Like a total girl I whimpered and freaked a bit and leaped out of the car and ran away. Useful I know! I ran off
Bird
Not sure what this bird was to try and find something to humanely remove it from the car with but by the time I got back Duncan had squished it as apparently it was trying to escape and hide under the driver's seat. Either way the spider was removed and I now pull down the sun visor very slowly!
We set off back up North and stopped at Quaama rest stop (Camps 5 no: 624 NSW) for lunch. Not a place I would recommend as it is right on the road and the toilets were not that great. I nearly lost my sandwich when I went in, and ended up using the gents, because the ladies were that bad...now that is saying something! We then had a bit of a drive fest and made it all the way up to Jervis Bay and drove through Huskisson and Vincentia on the way to the camp site. They are both really lovely little towns, and if we had loads of money and did no have to work, Vincentia would be pretty high on our wish list of places to live from that little tour we did! Fabulous white sandy bay and quiet wooded roads with some spectacular
Kooki
Can't spell that either! houses. Very nice.
We got to Green Patch campground in Boderee National Park (Camps 5 no: 603 NSW) at about 5.30 and could not see a ranger or figure out how we were supposed to pay. We then drove around the campsites a few times trying to figure out what to do and ended up just grabbing a site and pitching our tent. Luckily it had stopped raining for a second, but soon started again! We had BBQ'd sausages on the free electric BBQ's and chatted with some people camping near us. They had a massive 30 second tent (puts up in 30 seconds!) and a huge electric fridge that slotted into the back of their 4x4. Very jealous! They too suggested Duncan look into the mining industry for work.
We went to bed at a stupidly early hour and played cards and ate biscuits, but fell asleep pretty quickly until the torrential rain started up again, followed by the howling wind and then at midnight we were buzzed for half an hour by a couple of helicopters! Probably the rangers trying to find us for not paying! BUT we stayed dry and woke up at 7am surprisingly
The beach!
At Mallacoota refreshed and rather proud of ourselves and our first little camping jaunt! If we had more time we would have stayed at Green Patch for longer, the facilities are great and it is in a lovely position.
For breakfast we drove back down the road to Vincentia and sat on the beach watching the sun come up. It was well worth getting up so early, about 50 yrds from the beach were a dozen or so dolphins playing, right in front of us while we were eating our breakfast! Once we managed to tear ourselves away we got back in the car and tried to figure out where we were going to stay that night. We got to Gosford a lot quicker than we thought and stopped there for lunch. We had initially thought we might like to live there by what we had seen on the internet, but were not that impressed when we got there. However I blame most of that on the weather - still raining! We set up out electric esky having found a cable for it, and all chuffed with ourselves drove off from Gosford safe in the knowledge that we were cooling all
of our food. Sadly we had the switch the wrong way round and we were in fact cooking all of our food. Anyone for a bar of melted chocolate??!
We managed to get to Newcastle and had a drive about there too, seems quite sweet and the guidebook says it is very laid back and popular, but we could not really have a look round because of the rain. As we were leaving I spotted a ute with a poor dog in the back of it, soaking wet, being driven home! Not a very good pic I am afraid, car was moving! We were then quite close to Seal Rocks and parked up in a rest area by the highway (Camps 5 no:121 NSW) to have some dinner (noodles and a cup of tea on our little gas burner!) and contemplate whether we could sleep there. As we were about 10 foot away from the highway we thought maybe not, and so headed up the road a bit to the Ayres Rock Roadhouse (camps 5 no:118 NSW), a service station shaped like Ayres Rock (in case you hadn't guessed!) and just put the seats back in the car and
Duncan and Pearl!
Duncan with a gammy eye slept there. Had quite a good night sleep there and in the (again!) torrential rain headed off for Seal Rocks, where we are now sitting having a cuppa and chilling out. The sun is trying to get out, but is failing miserably. I really hope the weather picks up soon, soggy everything is no fun after a while!
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maggie
non-member comment
road trip
grand to hear about your adventures. gray says lucky he wasnt there when you found the spider, he would have beaten you out of that car.and screamed louder