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Published: April 22nd 2009
The mighty hippie
Campervan style, nearly!East Coast Adventure, Australia 4th April - 14th April
Day 1: Sydney to Byron Bay
Sydney to Byron Bay, 11 hours of epic road cruising over Sydney Harbor Bridge all the way up the Pacific Highway occasionally seeing koala crossings and stopping for the healthy food hit known as Hungry Jacks (AKA. Burger King!). The hippie campervan we have hired for 11 days is fully equipped, let’s just hope we are ready to be living in a car for that amount of time!! After the initial shock of driving a car again I’m off to a good start by following the gps from my laptop, no map drama for Team James & Helen… hopefully! 😉 The Ozzie roads are pretty empty and the driving was easy going, with the addition of their radio stations blasting out random 70’s and 80’s hits made the journey fly by, obviously with a bit of random road dancing and Helen singing out the tunes! Ha-ha! We arrived in Byron Bay, we think about 11 ish and setup the bed in the campervan and hit the sack. End of day 1 and 1000 kilometers north of Sydney!
Day 2: Byron
We wake
Byron Bay Lighthouse
A rather arty picture of the lighthouse from the most easterly point of Australia up and little did we know we were about 50 yards from the beach, we take an early morning stroll down the beach all the way to the lighthouse and the centre of Byron Bay. We both caught the sun so treated ourselves to several ciders and an uber ice cream cone, delish! (Cookie dough and cookies and cream, hmmmmmmmm!)
We check out all that Byron has to offer and set off back to the campsite a little frazzeled from the heat and a little drunk from the drink. Time for bbq’s and wine, I kick off the bbq in true ozzie style whilst Helen sets up the awning as it looks like a storm be a brewing! In true Jamelen style we hunker down under the awning and cook a fine selection of Ozzie treats to complement our cheap wine in a box! We are entertained by some rather mental seagulls who when we had finished with the now discarded bbq I put out in the rain, the seagulls, god knows what they were thinking decide to all head towards it and they must have hurt themselves as on running into the hot bbq they scream with there wings
Who took this photo!
Again, the most easterly point with two people petting!! No petting!! out but don’t fly away, they do it a good few times thereafter just to make sure that the bbq is indeed hot!! Idiots!!
Day 3: Byron Lighthouse and arrival in Surfers Paradise
We wake up with fuzzy heads from the night before and decide to go see the light house we saw whilst exploring yesterday. We drive all the way up and have lunch over looking the Pacific Ocean as far as the eye could see. The views from the lighthouse were nothing short of awesome and we got some cool photos of Byron bay and think we may have seen a whale or a dolphin or something blowing bubbles and popping out on the surface!? (We definitely came to the conclusion that it was some sort of sea creature and not a rock… we think!?)
Off to surfers paradise we go >>> we hit the road and get driving an hour up the coast to the sunshine coasts most prized area for the laid bay surfer or wannabe hippie et James & Helen! We manage to find a camping site dead central in Surfers Paradise surrounded by high rise apartments over looking the surf. On having
Byron the bay
on arriving after an epic drive a drive around we notice a police boat and a load of helicopters circling a spot on the water, none the wiser we continue on exploring. Later on that day we hear that a middle aged tourist from Japan had been swept away by the surf and to this day has not been found, eaten by sharks maybe?! Scary stuff ey! We decide to eat and I cook up some steak and eggs to get us ready for a night out around surfers, after a few glasses of goon and a few games of shithead of course! Out and about in surfers is a pretty sweet place with a few decent bars about which we tried out most of them, spent a bit of time in the Hard Rock Café chilling out until the night gets a bit fuzzy and we wake up the next morning!
Day 4: Surfers to Brisbane (Beerwah - Oz Zoo area)
We wake up to a beautiful morning and chill out and watch some Simpsons to ease ourselves into the day ahead..! Hard life isn’t it!
We decide to move on up to Brisbane, Queensland’s largest city, we weather takes a turn for
the worst and after a fair bit of reading into Brisbane we decide to give the city with what seems like very little to do a miss and head for the mighty Steve Irwin Zoo, better know as Australia zoo. On route we saw loads of memorials to the Steve Irwin on route and took in some of the tourist drives around the glass mountains, as beautiful as they were they weren’t all that compared to the blue mountains around New South Wales, still pretty cool though. We manage to locate a campsite set right next door to Australia Zoo with big spiders with big brown bums and a talking George, George’s are cockatoo’s by the way! The campsite is pretty nice and really cheap, 23 dollars for the night and is set in deep Queensland bush in Beerwah. We setup house and chill out before heading out to explore Steve Irwin’s local town, nice little place with shops that look like they are straight out of an old western movie. We find a nice little Italian place and took into some delish pizza, we take a stroll back to the campsite feeling a little stuffed and watch out for
Crocoseum
Croc jumping about a metre and a half out of the water for some meat! croc’s on route! As it’s Helen’s b’day week I give her one of her many little birthday present, she know owns her very own pimped out White Nintendo DS with all the MTV Hills she can watch (meaning I don’t have to watch them anymore!!! )
Day 5: Australia Zoo and Hervey Bay
We get up early and shot the little camper 100 meters down the road to Australia Zoo, whoop whoop! On paying the over enthusiastic ticket girl we take a look at the map and the place is bloody huge, going to be a busy day! We head through a load of croc’s to the Crocoseum for the show, used to be done by Steve Irwin and it feel a bit like it still is as photos and videos of him are everywhere, generally him been a mentalist and the guys who do it now are pretty much the same so that was awesome!
We spent the rest of the day feeding kangaroo’s, petting koalas and been freaked out by birds bigger than me and some crazy elephants and a tiger eating the back part of some sort of cattle! Epic day over and off
This is real...
well, it would be if it wasn't a model of one that could be out there! to Hervey bay……
Ended up been a really nice drive with great scenery and when we nearly ran out of petrol I found out that billboards seem to be very effective on me… on seeing a petrol station I signal to pull in, BUT, on the other side of the road a McDonalds billboard says “Don’t Stop!” so like a good driver I stop indicating and drive on straight past the petrol station to Helen’s shock as we have been on red for a good few miles now!! Doh!!
We make it to Hervey bay in the eveo’ and managed to get a free upgrade at a campsite to our own on suite because we were English and the lady working there was English as well, good work Brits abroad!
Day 6: Hervey Bay
We have a well deserved lie in and it’s almost Helen’s birthday, although it’s been her birthday week as she opened her card in Manly and her presents on several days. We decide to move to a cheaper campsite and find one just down the road and right on the beach, beautiful! Eggs on toast with beans it is for brekkie and then off
10am Champagne!
Happy Birthday Helen! ;) to explore and book our trip to Fraser Island.
OH NO, all the trips are fully booked and there is no space on the ferries… looks like we will have to extend the holiday a little, oh no!! Ha-ha!! So we chill out around Hervey bay which is a gorgeous little town where the sea is so calm it’s crazy! We manage to find ourselves a little Suzuki 4x4 to explore the island the day after tomorrow and plan how we are going to get around the island, plus we buy a tent for $24 dollars, cheap cheap, plus if we had of hired a tent and sleeping bags through the 4x4 company it would have cost us $200 dollars! After a pretty pro-active day and all our plans sorted we head out to get some food and find a pretty random restaurant that specializes in Japanese, Australian, Italian and local fish called the Black dog restaurant - fish supper for both which was super delish! Drunk and stuffed we head back to finish of our wine and on route get eaten alive by mozzies!!
Day 7: Hervey Bay and *Helen’s Birthday*
Champagne breakfast on the beach, all
Lake McKenzie
Fraser Island, freshwater lakes, beautiful! before mid day and we walk along the seafront feeling a little bit drunk. We go shopping for some drink, food for Helen’s b’day meal and have an uber delish bbq, fresh shrimp on the Barbie with wine from Hunters Valley, Iron Gate wine, Yummy!! So good!! Drunkenly get ready for Fraser Island at 5:45 in the am! … We may regret this…
Day 8: Fraser Island
Up early, minimal hangover we head over to pick up the 4x4 Suzuki Jimney and cruise down to the get the barge across to Fraser. After some awesome reverse parking from me we are on the ferry and ready to roll.
We decide to head to the place that everyone wants to go to and get there in double time speed and dive straight into the crystal clear freshwater of Lake Mackenzie. We spend awhile here chilling out in the water and on the white sandy beach as well as getting some underwater photos. Then on to a nice easy drive to Eurong beach village, we are now on the 75 mile beach, yup, 75 miles of nothing but beach… or so we thought! About halfway down the island we
Maheno Ship Wreck
Fraser Island, 75 mile beach notice a bit of a build up of traffic, yup the worst kind of traffic, beach traffic! We see big landrover type cars struggling to get through an area known as Mclaughlin Rocks, I decide to give it a go in the little Suzuki… attempt 1; FAIL, smashed pretty much head on into some pretty large and hard rocks! Opps…
Ok, everyone is looking so… Attempt 2; GREAT SUCCESS, we bump and grind our way through about 50 meters of jagged rocks and come out smelling of roses passing a few KO’ed big 4x4’s. On to Maheno Shipwreck, pulled up next to this huge shipwreck which looks like it won’t be there for much longer given that the sea seems to be reclaiming it. Views straight out to the Pacific Ocean are amazing in this area, maybe come back here to camp. After chilling out here we head to Indian heads. Indian heads is a separate beach a bit smaller with sand that seems to have a sinking effect on the cars?! We manage to bomb it up Indian head but I fear I may have burnt out the clutch a little, going by the smell?! Anyhow…. Off to Champagne
Lake Birrabeen
Fraser Island, another gorgeous lake rocks to relax. On jumping into the pool we notice that the rocks are alive with freaky spit creatures that have mouths, freaky indeed! After an hour or two trying to work out what they hell they are we decide to setup camp for the night. We head back to the ship wreck and find a nice little area. Tent setup, I jump inside, hmmm seems a little small, oops, it seems that it is not a tent but a UV beach hut, doh! We have no choice so we will be hunkered down in a mini beach hut not long enough for a fully grown man plus a Helen! Feeding time… well it would be if we remembered to bring the spare gas canister, oh no!!! Off to the shop I drive a few miles down the beach… nope they have no gas canisters! So no fuel equals tuna sandwiches and Doritos under the stars for dinner. DOH!!
Day 9: Fraser Island to Hervey Bay to Byron Bay
Wake up to find Dingo’s have been looking for food literally cm’s away from our tent. Make our way inland as you can’t drive on the beach before 11.11am
Electric clogs
Mini Holland in Coffs Harbor, random!! because the tide in still in. We decide to take in the desert, jungle and forests as well as a few more lakes today and head inland, 3hour hardcore 4wd in and out of forest, rain forest and sandy terrain. Knifeblade Sandblow, on walking up to this rather awesome sight of sand dunes as far as the eye can see I walk right into a massive spider’s web, fair to say I let out a yelp like a little school girl! Beautiful scenery, miles worth of Sand! Head onto Eurong, get stuck a couple of time, burning the clutch out to get out of holes... lets hope they don’t notice when we get back to the shop!? Getting stuck behind slow drivers, now you’d think been in a big 4x4 you wouldn’t get stuck in jams but you do! Off to Lake Allom, full of turtles, feed them bread even though we aren’t meant to, oops! One little bugger tries to eat Helen’s little toe. Off to find Lake Birabeen. No fuel left in the Suzuki, make it back to Aussie Trax and get away with burning the clutch out.
We get back our $2000 dollars and we are so
Pies pies pies!
Crocodile pies = delish! happy!! Whoop whoop!! Fraser Island is an awesome place and we would definitely go back, down we head to Byron! Helen’s turn to drive and she bomb’s it to Byron bay!! Illegally parks up as we are not there long and wake up before any long John ranger finds us and off we go again to Coffs Harbor.
Day 10: Byron to Coffs Harbor (mini Holland)
On arriving in Coffs Harbor we have the hunger and opt for the foot long sub of the day, eat fresh! We find a really nice campsite and get cleaned up as we both smell a little from the intense driving and not having washed since before Fraser Island we were both looking a bit like castaways at this point. After my legendary hour long showers I emerge clean as a whistle and obviously Helen was done a good 30 minutes ago!! We check the Rough Guide for stuff to do and find they have a place called little Holland. Day trip to Holland anyone, clogs and all! Mini Holland is a little weird, we try on various clogs and have a giant cookie and some proper tea from a teapot! Delish!
Our hippievan...
Oh no Helen, what have you done!! ;) Enough random culture, off for food and fun, we decide to walk into town and hunt out some food, 2 hours later we haven’t decided what we want so we settle on a rather fancy Indian restaurant, a bit like Spice Exchange minus the Cobra unfortunately! Food was pretty dam good and after a few beer we decide to get a taxi back as we have no idea how to get back to the campsite and to be honest we are a little bit too drunk as well!
Day 11: Coffs Harbor to Sydney
The long drive home and the long farewell to our hippie campervan, we are sad to see her go but also glad to have an actual bed again (one I fit in!).
We arrive back safe and sound and not only that, the little scratch I managed to get on the side went unnoticed and we get back our second bond of the week back when we shouldn’t have, GO TEAM!
Had an epic time on our adventure on the East Coast of Australia and we will keep you posted on the next chapters… >>>
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James Kim
James and Kim
I want to travel again!!
Sounds like you guys had an great time!! I am a little concerned at the number of times you were phished! haha good work! And Jim, we all know what you do in 1hr shower sessions....It will make you go blind my friend!