Our Australia trip

Today a sleep in, we were a bit annoyed when Dotti was ready to get out again and also Nossi was eager for food, but when we looked at the clock it was already 8.25 am. That’s late in camping speak. Generally we’re up at light and start yawning at dark. Then we fool around for another couple of hours with twigs, sticks and logs and try to evade clouds of smoke to get a little warm. I am sure that the GPS and the fire are working together to get life challenging, but we’re tougher. Hah!

This was our last day in Darlington park. It was a bit too organized for us and too many people. Also not bushy enough. Our neighbours Geoff and Elizabeth were nice but after having heard about their past, their kids and married family as well as their plans until September next year we thought it was time to go.

So we packed up and by ten were ready for the road. Geoff had all kind of useful tips for next campings but being over 50 we can concentrate only on one thing and we remembered their names but forgot all his tips other than that you should always camp at least 5 km out of a town to avoid local invasions. There must be some truth in that as the Uralla Fossicking area is within that radius of Uralla.

The trip to Aratula went without any remarkable events. We stopped at Beaudesert for a coffee that I was supposed to get while Marjo stayed with the dogs in the bus. Half an hour later (could be a bit more) I came back with a coffee plunger, my favourite muesli (Woollies Strawberry) and oat and raisin cookies from Woolworths, bread and white chocolate from Aldi and a new axe from the local farm supplies store. Oh and the coffee with a smile from the friendly girl. With that same smile she charged $5.50 a coffee and that’s when I decided to get the plunger so for the same $11 we can make 100 organic cuppa’s.

Then onto Boonah where Marjo found a new version of the Camping guide (we upgraded from version 2 to version 6), Templin where we admired the historic village and got hold up by cows on the road. Different from the cows on Lamington National Park road on the way not to Darlington park, these were herded by two guys, a four wheel drive and a yapping dog. Nice to see, inclusive of the cow dung squashed by the tires of the bus.

Less nice was the camouflage of the trailer afterwards. We’ll see how long it sticks.

Not much later we arrived in Aratula, sounds a bit like they should have a Khomeini. But they just had a gate with signs that booking was necessary. We are Dutch and have no manners so just open the gate and drive up. A lady as tall as my fingernail and white like the bus used to be came up to us with a rueful look on her face. She just had two days of motocross kids and was about to chainsaw a tree for firewood for a group next week. She spoke kinda loud, perhaps hoping that over 50 and all we would be hard of hearing. We asked if she had spots away from all the noise and she said that we had to look for ourselves, but wasn’t sure our bus could make the nice spots.

Marjo and Nossi went scouting and found a reasonable spot so I got the bus. I told the white pinksize lady and she said that if the old bus could make it that far there would be an even nicer spot further down the trail.

Driving to the original spot Marjo had found the same and now we’re just lighting a fire on the side of a creek, the dogs on their beds, Marjo a wine and me sipping a New.

Now, a nice bus made (home made sounds better) pumpkin soup we are both catching up on email and such using iPads and the 1 bar of phone reception. T h a t     m a k e s     e v e r y t h i n g    g o    v e r y     s l o w . . . .

Wooyung has been our longest stop with 3 nights and today we decided that the Queensland school holiday crowd was too much for us to stay.

We very much enjoyed the beach and the spot but the crowd at the beach this morning is something we just don’t enjoy any more. I mean four people on the beach is just too much to handle 😉
Nevertheless Nossi was eager to go and pulled me ahead and of course I was entertained by his zoomies.

Dotti meanwhile recovered somewhat, she woke us up by a repeating drum of her wagging tail on the bus floor, drank water and ate half her breakfast consisting of rice, pumpkin and chicken.

Then it was packing up and at around 10 am we were on the road. Somehow we need to improve our route performance. We can blame the wicked GPS but I guess we need to be a bit more diligent if we don’t want to make it a habit to arrive at a new spot after dark. Today was no exception which means we were on the road for 7 hours and covered 178 km. this is what happened:

First we went the wrong way out of the camping. Marjo will say: I told you so, but that is just nonsense. My gut feel is much more reliable than the GPS. A bit like my thumb measure. The GPS is your best friend though and it found an alternative route 🙂

Then the GPS got it somewhat wrong, it suggested a turn where there were only bushes and then wanted to continue for 15 km where we just could cross the Pacific Highway and get the onramp. This is where I went wrong and at a very crowded and confusing roundabout I took the highway south instead of north. Ah well, what do you do. Then 10 km further we could turn off, cross and get back on the highway north. We steadily refused the suggestions from the GPS to make u-turns on the highway. Even I know that is for emergency vehicles only.

So 45 minutes later we were not much further than when we left the camping. From there it went reasonably smooth. Saturday morning, the first day of school holidays is not really the time to drive around Tweed Heads and traffic was dense. We left the territory of NSW at 10.56 am and at he same time entered the Queendom of Queensland. The highway was perfect though and we got smoothly through to the turnoff for South Nerang. That’s where we would go shopping for groceries. Ah well, plans are only that, a wise man once said. We only saw a man operated roundabout where we had to wait for 30 minutes before it was our turn (in reality it was probably 3 minutes but it felt long. We stopped for fresh produce and a coffee and then continued on our way to Beaudesert.
We stopped in the bikie town of Canungra and bought groceries, wine and beer and canvassed the local hardware store. I won’t admit it, but my hours of mirror repairs meant that all the way the only thing visible through the passenger side mirror was the road up close. So my new parts will go towards an improved mirror design. Patent pending.

In Canungra we got lunch (fish and chips with more questions than I’m used to in Sydney: what fish, whiting or barramundi or … or … – what chips, thick cut or thin cut….what salt: plain, sea or chicken?) and at the local gas station some new water. Well, that was the idea. When asking the attendant she went away for 5 minutes and came back saying that it would be too difficult. I said, no problem. I’ll do it all and will only take 5 minutes. Then she said that is not something the station could afford. And I said I’m happy to pay for the 40 liters tap water. All 2 cents or so. Then she said I should talk to the supervisor. I waited for the supervisor. She tried to avoid me and when I cornered her she said that she needed to consult management. After 5 minutes she came back from the phone and said that she was very sorry but that the station could not help but that we could go to the local park and get it from a tap there. Great service in these Queensland servo’s. Well, the tap in the park was an option, if you carry a 100 meter hose or learn the bus how to jump fences. Suddenly fresh water became a mission and we scourged Canungra for an available tap. We asked people who must have thought we were kinda strange, these two semi Dutch semi Australians driving around in a snow camouflage bus looking for water. Finally we found a tap on the local sports grounds, parked the bus in get away mode because it felt kinda not allowed and filled her up with water.

I think I said it before but am now convinced that the GPS is out to make life as difficult as possible for us. From Canungra it lead us over the Lamington National Park road which is pittoresque. By now you know my definition of that word: bends, hills and this time also “blind curves – prepare to stop”. The road went up this steep hill, with 26 blind curves, many one lane sections, pieces of road where the bus fitted just between the trees, grates tht turned the road into paddocks complete with cows and two GPS advised turns that were non-existent.

Finally it lead us down Sandy Creek road. Yes. Well. Sandy indeed…..creek too….the road was a rutted track with a sign: 4WD only, road inhabitable after rain. And it had rained the night before. So no hope in a 100 years would I send down Sandy Creek road the bus with two dogs and my wife. Let alone with myself in it. Turning around was no option either, so we were hoping that the road would lead to some other option further down. Not quite. We arrived at around 3.30 pm at a national park on the top complete with visitor centre. Dogs not allowed.
What this meant was 26 blind curves down and an extra 98 km to make it to Darlington Park. As penalty we closed down the GPS and went it alone. Back in Canungra we turned it back on but were forewarned. So when it told us to take a turn on some small road we looked sharp and noticed the sign “no through road” and ignored the GPS for the rest of the trip.

We arrived, after dark of course, just missing two kangaroos that were sitting ducks on the road, at Darlington Park that was full with holidaying Queenslanders and walked around to find a spot. In the end we settled near a water pump close to the creek and after dinner and coffee went to bed. Tired but satisfied….we finally beat the GPS.

Great plans are only that….. The day started with Dotti not well. In the middle of the night she needed to get out, as most men I have a sixth sense that makes me deaf and blind at nights when children or pets demand help from adults. So Marjo took charge and helped the poor dog outside. Nossi analysed the situation and felt that there needed to be balance so to penalize me she quickly jumped on the bed and under the doona, of course on my half……

In the morning Dotti was sick again, this time it was only 7 am, outside of the active hours of my sixth sense, so I got up and took both dogs for a walk. It was still cold and foggy, close to the river near Jackadgery, which made for some nice pictures.

I fed the dogs; Dotti wasn’t hungry and Marjo had meanwhile arranged breakfast. Great teamwork.

We sat down near the river and looked for our next stop. We decided that the Rummery camping ground a nice bush camping in Whian Whian State Forest would be our next stop. We checked to make sure it was no National Park, rang the accompanied information line, checked online and all seemed ok. As fail safe we even looked at the nearby Camp Old Cottage park.

We left early to have plenty of time and arrive once at daylight and took the winding road to Grafton and from there via the Pacific Highway up the coast. The navigator helped us find the most obscure little dirt roads and several times we are convinced that it leads us down the most pittoresque (and winding, hilly and bumpy) dirt roads. It was a very nice trip though, through the rolling hinterlands of Byron, Bangalow and other hippy towns. We stopped on the way to get a new bigger mirror, for coffee and teacake (with apple, yummy) and also for a Dotti stop under Macademia trees. Of course we couldn’t stop ourself cleaning up a little and ended up with half a kilo of Macademia nuts.

Everywhere along the road people are offering produce, all very healthy, macro biotic, vegan, organic and more. Prices are in line with these special features and we felt a bit guilty when we saw a sign for 100 grams of Macademia nuts for $7. Ah well.

The roads got narrower and narrower, with many 25kph turns, bridges and through vine covered tree archways. Very nice and leading up to a beautiful setting for Rummery. Finally we reached the turn to the camping and we were not disappointed. Or? we tried hard to ignore the sign “NO DOGS” and almost convinced ourselves and other camping users that it was only for the north side of the camping. Then we found the camping information board with a large section about domestic pets not allowed.
Finally we decided to go for the backup plan: Camp Old Cottage park only 3 km up the road. After more dirt road with potholes and curves we arrived at three big stumps next to the road preventing vehicle access. I walked up the path behind the stumps and walked into some youth camp with 20 or more 17y old girls and as many tents and cooking pots. Finally we had phone reception and contacted Whian Whian State Forest management. This time someone answered and told us that because Whian Whian is a State Forest Conservation Area no pets are allowed and there was no camping near by.
So much for careful planning.

Maps open, camping books reviewed, internet on…..so we found Wooyung Camping near Pottsville. On the coast. Pet friendly. We wanted to make sure and called them only to find out that the camping management has their day off on Wednesday….today.
The pittoresque and winding roads, rolling hills and pretty sights lost a lot of their charm on the 65 km between Rummery and Wooyung. Certainly now it got later and darker and we were happy to reach the Wooyung caravan park.

Now, with a belly full of nice dinner (compliments to Marjo), a Gin and Tonic, a warm fire and the sound of rolling waves, everything seems like a past dream. I’m sure we will wake up with the sun and have a ball on the beach tomorrow with the dogs.

Sleep tight 🙂

Waking up I was nice and warm (smart girl with extra shawl under my blanky) Axel still feeling the remnants of his water escapade, was not warm at all, and tried to warm his hands on me!
Well, I got breakfast in bed out of it.
The morning sun was lovely, it was warming our faces, but not the washing, ah well put it in a bag for the next opportunity to dry.

We set of with loads of firewood and a few specks of gold, on the way to a bush camping near a large dam near Inverell.

This must be fox country, we saw about five dead foxes along the road but no kangaroos whatsoever.
Corrugated dirt road here and there, but all in all not to bad, and the navigator was better at predicting driving time than Axels thumb was lol!
At the entrance of the gate of the camping area there was a sign saying” no dogs allowed” what the..? We found it in a book “bush camping with dogs”!
We rang the owner, no problem, just keep the dog with you so it does not roam around the camping. Phew!
We found out the reason why there are no dogs allowed. We also know now where all the kangaroos of mid north west NSW have gone. Near a kangaroo sanctuary close to Copeton dam! The dam, by the way, is said to be three times the size of Sydney Harbour.

We found a perfect spot, with lake view, fireplace, fish smoking area (as if) and a short walk to hot showers!
AND a washing machine, very ancient, but hey, it worked.
Dotti did an Axel and went involuntary for a swim, Nos spotted a kangaroo and was gone with the wind, luckily he came back when I put my stern “I am the boss” voice on to call him back (he was very timid the rest of the evening).

Axel went for a mountain bike ride, and came back with the washing on his back.

I made dinner while Axel played guitar next to a small fire..yes small..he had his heart set on the heater in the bus, because we, for the first time, have a powered site this night.

Even the washing is standing in the bus near the heater, and the bed is cosy to crawl in to, unlike the night before.
See what the morning will bring.

The next morning the sun was out, the temperature soon rose and the place looked much different. No rain. No screaming. No cold. We canvassed and found a nice spot to park the bus, not too far and close to the river. After several attempts I got the bus perfect only to realize that the side door opened straight into a tree. I had parked the bus facing the wrong way. With Marjo’s help we tried a second attempt and got a perfect setting.

The sun made it really nice and we went out to look at digging our retirement fortune of gold. I guess naivity can be a blessing. When we arrived at the sand riverbank we were greeted by a 1:100 ratio of gold to sand grains. The sand was literally glittering with gold. Unfortunately the gold was so small and flaky that trying to collect it only meant that the flinter thin gold ended up smearing over your hand. A gold speckled hand is nice but not useful other than that we now understand the meaning of a golden handshake.

We managed to find some of the thicker pieces of gold but still only about half a millimeter thick and 2×3 millimeter in size. You would need thousands of those to make any noticeable weight, let alone making a fortune. I guess at some areas there could be larger nuggets but we lost interest.

The area is stunning though, large boulders everywhere and the water cold and in places streaming fast. The temperature of the water I experienced up close. Marjo ventured further with Nossi and returned after half an hour, I meanwhile tried ways to collect the gold slivers quicker and was professionally washing sand, sitting on my hunches, failing miserably. When Marjo returned I got up and apparently my veins decided to supply my legs with fresh blood after having been constricted for some time. With insufficient oversupply of blood my brain cells got starved even more than what is normally the case and I blacked out for a few seconds. I mumbled something and Marjo thought nothing special of that. The hill of sand on which I stood guided me back so that in two stumbling steps I fell backwards in the freezing water and got saturated. If something wakes you up better than freezing water then I don’t want to know about it. I was up in no time and got back to the bus, realizing that I had no keys. Luckily I only found the waterproof camera in my pockets. Marjo followed soon with keys and I changed clothes, hanging the soaked ones to dry in the sun.

After this adventure we lit a fire, found more wood and made a nice big fire to warm me and dry the clothes. Both worked so so, I stayed cold all night, also because with a clear night the temperature dropped to 2 Celcius and also the clothes smelled nice of smoke and were still quite wet on the clothes line.

NOW Axel..I honestly thought you were joking, when you mumbled something and started stumbling toward the waters edge! Sorry!
And yes the river area is stunning,I love the boulders in the water, creating little waterfalls.
On my walk with Nossi, he did a perfect impression of a kangaroo while spotting one across the water.
And a bit later he spotted an echidna,which in turn tried to hide under a rock.
Lucky only it’s bum stuck out,(Nossi was sniffing it) and not it’s face, I think Nossi would have gotten acupuncture otherwise.

Axel also collected firewood to put in the trailer for future campfires. At the last camping a guy commented you should jump on fire wood if you see any!

We both decided that we had seen the mid north NSW coast too many times and not the hinterland. So we decided instead of following the Pacific Highway that it would be good to go and check out Armidale.

In the Camping-with-dogs guide there was a nice camping presented near Uralla, with gold and gemstone fossicking. Rule of thumb measurements (my thumb worked well) made it a three hour trip.
The road was nice, past Bellingen, Ebor and other picturesque places and nice rolling hills. Six hours and 1,000 meter elevation later we arrived at dark near the Uralla Fossicking Area.

It was very dark with the only light coming from cars close to what we assumed was the water with screaming voices from drunk or otherwise excited teenagers. We could only find a small curve from the parking area as stop place and parked the bus, set up and tried to find wood in the now starting rain. This was going to develop quickly to be our most favourite spot. Not.

The fire was struggling, the voices were getting louder and cars kept coming and going. The rain was intermittent and when it became steady, the rain gave in and so did the teenagers. The temperature dropped meanwhile to somewhere around 7 degrees which is cold when you sit outside.

The highlight of the day was that I got lucky that night 🙂

Waking up to….well nothing really. Because we felt like it. The dogs slept like roses, Nossi in front of the passenger seat, where he also travels and Dotti between the seats. Marjo and I on the king size bed in the back. In the background the noise of the highway….or….no….the ocean of course.
I get up to make breakfast, Marjo coffee and sandwiches with cheese, pâté and jam and for me peppermint tea and muesli. We share half an apple. Then back in bed to consume this while reading a book on the iPad, the dogs still slumbering. Marjo gets up, feeds the dogs and walks to the beach. Nossi goes nuts when he sees the sand and runs laps, he seems to have this running laps association with grass and sand. What goes on in a dogs mind will always remain a mystery although I’m sure most of it won’t be rocket science.

Meanwhile I have shaved and cleaned up, collected some firewood, my only planning for the day and made coffee. In the already warm sun we sit and watch and drink coffee. I said before, this could grow on me.

Then we do a repeat and walk with both dogs to the beach, a 1 minute walk. There we kick off our thongs (or toe slippers for non Australians) and walk barefoot on the still wet sand. The dogs run after the tennis ball and each other and run towards the sea until the oncoming water chases them back. We walk around the corner over the rocky breaker and see that it’s low tide. That creates little ponds with warmish water. In one Marjo gets a scare from a large fish (brand unknown) that was more scared from her delicate foot and trashes around to try and hide in the small pond. Nossi is intrigued and investigates. The fish gets even more scared and trashes himself out of the water onto the beach. Now Nos is triumphant and as he does pokes his nose into the fish. Being a softy I can’t let my dog kill a fish and help the poor little fella back into his pond where he clings to the rockwell in the hope that Nossi loses interest. He does when we walk on to give Dotti water therapy. This to activate his back leg since she’s been three legged for the last 2 months or so, avoiding to walk on her arthritis plagues back leg. This therapy consists of slow walking so that she uses the leg and also water movement so she can move it without having to put pressure on it. The idea was to do this in a shallower part of where the sea circles the rocky area. Well that worked only as long as not a big wave decided to come around and swoop Dotti with her. I could barely prevent her from becoming a seal.

In the he afternoon I picked up my guitar again, Marjo had a nap, we planned our next stop and I took my practice kite to the beach. It feels nice to let it soar through the air by moving the handle bar. Soon I have to do the real kite boarding!

Our first day on the road. This could grow on me 🙂
The morning was still busy with emptying the last few things from our house, locking up, feeding the chickens one last time and ‘hey surprise! An egg’ as parting gift from the chickens. While saying goodbye to neighbours we found how many people like to potter around in their pyama’s while unsuspecting visitors.
The neighbourhood will have to endure a week of the roadside throw away stuff to be collected by council but many promised to increase the pile by unwanted gifts, something everyone seems to do and I must admit that I’m guilty of this practice too.

The first time we hooked up the trailer behind the bus everything seems to work. A little puzzle was to try and unlock the perfect fitting padlocks on the 20 litre drums for diesel and water. They fit so well that it is hard to find the keyhole. Ah well, a quest for when we really need them.

Leaving Sydney seemed emotionally difficult so we took the longest possible detour via Coles for some last shopping and a circling visit to the Shell. On the highway in Wahroonga the petrol station is on the other side of the road and only accessible by circling the block twice; once to get access to the petrol station and once more to leave it in the direction we wanted to go.
The bus odometer is set on: 294,350

By then the clouds had parted and we could join the F3 motorway heading north. This road is well known, we regularly take it going to La Manda, our rental vacation home in Smiths Lake (link: La Manda). The road starts with a big hill that normally we drive with 110kph like everyone else. Now we find there’s another category of road users that struggle to go any faster than 40kph and we joined this stream of trucks. The rest of the road also showed that from not being concerned about hills and bends we now feel ourselves part of the trucking community that cares about down shifting up and breaking down hill. We event went sofar that we signaled extended semi-trailers when it was safe to return to the left lane after passing us, one kph faster than we were going and we got rewarded by the blinking left and right indicators.

With two stops in Heatherbrea (we had the McDonalds Sydney Stack for lunch, verdict: not recommended) and a roadside stop we arrived at Kempsey and turned off to Crescent Head. Luckily this is one of Marjo’s regular stops on her annual pilgrimage with Els the air hostess so via a winding road, roadside watching roo’s and the worst corrugated and potholed 5 km road (ok, I admit I’m not used to much) we tried to find the camping in the dark. Arriving at some turnoff I decided not to turn in head first but park our rig (sounds impressive) on the round and walk to see in the pitch dark whether we would not drive straight into the local swamp. Luckily a local stopped and gave instructions after which we arrived at the campsite, parked on the first reasonably looking spot and got out. In no time we had seats out, dog beds, awning and while Marjo looked at food options, I got friendly with a neighbouring camper (a young couple doing the same as us but with a brand new ute converted with sleep-on-fold-out) and begged for his wood. With everything still wet from the weeks of rain dry wood is hard to come by but with his dry wood and some other found woodcuts we managed a small fire that the dogs approved of too.

Not much later, after dinner (yummy beanstew with chicken mince), coffee (with oat and raisin cookies) and beer/wine we hit our beds. Marjo expertly made everything work. Evening wash, all the things you might ever need to go to sleep and wake up and for the dogs a perfect cosy nest in the front of the bus.

All in all a perfect day (a well, we won’t tell that I forgot to lock the trailer and that I left the keys all night in the door of the gas bottle with the door wide open).

Odometer: 294,769

Posted from Crescent Head, New South Wales, Australia.