New South Wales (08 - 17 Oct 2010)

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October 20th 2010

Published: October 20th 2010

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MA go East

Byron Bay

The lighthouse

It rained and got 10 degrees colder from the day we crossed the border into the New South Wales region.

First stop was the most western point of Australia called Byron Bay with it's beautiful lighthouse. We liked this place even if the whether wasn't great. It looked a bit like a hippie town and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and just relax.

Talking about hippies, we went for a quick stop in Nimbin the day we left Byron Bay. This is truly a hippie town. All commercial stores are about Jesus smoking dope and being free from crazy society. Many "happy" people on street wanted to give us cookies… obviously we had to refuse such a nice gesture and asked them to give it to the japanese following us from behind. Definitely a must do!

Later that day we arrived in Bellingen, a small village next to the Dorrigo National Park. We hoped for some sun to pop up from all the gray and cold whether but that was not the case… I thought Australia was supposed to have sun all the time, wasn't it? The National Park looked nice with rainforests and some waterfalls. There's also

Byron Bay

an impressive skywalk but unlucky us… the only thing we could see was white from the mist.

We decided to go further south hoping to find some sunshine. Next stop was Port Macquarie… still cold but getting better. The beach is nice with all its coloured stones; there were some crazy bodyboarders doing 360s in freezing water. Another thing to do here is to visit the Koala Hospital with Birthday Girl, the oldest koala in the world… 24 years old. A koala usually lives till 15.

The next day became a bit though for me. It is now approx 3000 km that I am driving. Stopping in hostels just for a night or two and then jump back into the car and go to the next hostel etc… we had to take a small break and decided to stop for 3 days in the Hunter Valley, the oldest wine region of Australia just a 200 km north of Sydney. We had some wine tours, bought a good bottle of red wine, enjoyed TV in the hostel with a Topgear episode, met some friendly scottish but could hardly understand a word they were saying and had some crazy sandboarding

Byron Bay

Gone with the wind!:)

in Port Stephens which is just an 80 km away. Sandboarding is similar to snowboarding but on sand...

Our battery was again all charged up and we went further down to the Blue Mountains. Oh my God, it was f… freezing here and it even started snowing!!! A wind that could blow me back to Belgium in a second… scary. Lucky us, the sun appeared on our last day and we had the experience we hoped for. It was great!!! Lot's of amazing sceneries through the scenary railway and the cableway; an amazing look out on the three sisters from Echo Point.

We are now arrived in Sydney; it's time to say bye bye to our rental car. I feel quite happy to walk for the few coming days before starting to drive again this time in… NEW ZEALAND!!! YEAH!!!

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