Well g’day mate. How is it going my dear friends? I am doing very well and have just recently started my adventure up the east coast of Australia. My departure date for Melbourne was 2nd June which gave us a 3 month window to conquer the coast. I am travelling with Izzy, a girl I know from uni. She has a car and a tent and a stove and the plan is to spend as little money as possible and proper slum it whilst travelling.
So we awoke on the Wednesday extremely hungover and with a lot to sort out before our trip begun. I finished packing my belongings and said my goodbyes to the people in my hostel. It was quite sad to leave them all considering I had been there quite a while and had become pretty good friends with a lot of people. But I suppose that’s just the way things go out here and there’s not really much you can do. We then proceeded to do our food shopping which went surprisingly well, owning a gas stove with only one ring we needed to plan carefully and ensure we bought cheap food which was quick and easy to cook. If I would have had to do this myself I would have definitely struggled but luckily Izzy was much better at this than myself and we came out with a very successful shop with some promising meals to look forward to. And so the road trip began, I drove on the first day and we decided to try and break a long stretch of the journey but after about 5 hours of driving it was already dark and it was time for a sleep. We found a truckers stop and decided it would be best to just sleep in the car. I was slightly concerned to how this would be but it actually turned out to be fine. I had my sleeping bag and although it was a bit cramped, I managed to sleep fine and was nice and fresh in the morning for the rest of the journey. Melbourne to Sydney is actually only about a 10 hour drive, but we had several stops on the way which we intended to stop at. We are basically using the Lonely Planet as our bible to Australia and are therefore basing most of our stops from what the book recommends.
Our first real stop (not including the night in the truck stop) was in Batemans Bay - cleverly nicknamed by myself as Batman’s Bay. We arrived here when it was already dark and it was hammering with rain and again came to the joint decision that it would be no fun setting up a tent in the dark let alone in the rain and so sleeping in the car was our only option. Batman’s bay is a small town with very little in it, although I can imagine if you catch it on a nice sunny day it would be much better. So we had a look around to see what we could do in the evening and the only real option we had was to go to the cinema, and unfortunately, the only real option of a film to see was Sex in the City 2. Yes, that’s right, I went to see Sex in the City 2 in the cinema, laugh it up!! Anyway, we had also decided that to make the film more enjoyable a bag of goon would help things along. So we took a bag in with us and although we got quite drunk I must say the film was still terrible, and luckily for me Izzy felt exactly the same. I have never left a film before the end in my entire life, and I’m so happy that this was my first. We went back to the car, made some soup on our little gas stove and then hit the sack, fully prepared for the long drive again the following day. Morning came and I must say we both felt terrible, however some worse than other and so it was my responsibility to drive. Lame!!
Our following stop was to be based in Jervis Bay. We had found a national park there where we could camp and arrived during the day to allow for plenty of light whilst setting up the tent. The national park was actually really cool, and backed onto a beautiful beach which was more or less deserted when we went down there. After some exploring and a close encounter with a wallaby we got in the tent and decided to crash. It was still early but I suppose 2 nights sleeping in a car had really taken its toll. It did unfortunately rain pretty savagely that night, and after Izzy has flooded half of the tent we managed to get some sleep and it was actually fine! Once again we left here reasonably early and set off to our following destination, Wollongong.
Wollongong is a slightly larger town just before Sydney. We again decided to camp in Bulli national park which is not far from the town of Wollongong. Our tent site this time was however not so picturesque, in fact it was actually about 10 meters away from a graveyard. This was reasonably freaky, but I came to the conclusion that I have seen more than enough zombie films to be able to survive if anything were to happen. This put my worries at rest but for some reason I don’t think Izzy was quite so confident. Anywho, we headed into the city and had a walk around the shops before heading to a side road to cook our dinner. We must have looked like a right couple of hobo’s sitting there eating, but we had chicken curry and I must say it was of the highest quality. We then stayed in Wollongong and went to a bar for a few drinks…well Izzy was driving, but I decided not to let this get in the way and I had a few drinks. It was a good night and we left not too late and headed back to the camp site for some much deserved rest.
And so 4 days later and Sydney was upon us, I had arranged to stay with some friends that I had previously met back in Bondi. They were more than welcoming and we were extremely grateful when we arrived and it felt so good to just sit down on a couch when we arrived. 4 days in a car really does take its toll. So we decided to just rest on our first night, chill on the couch and eat some food. As much as I enjoy travelling, you can’t beat home comforts. The following day we decided to explore the city and met up with Kirt and Shelly. They had just arrived in Sydney and it was wiked to meet up with them, we went for a coffee and had a walk around, not much too interesting. The following day was already arranged on what we were going to do. Domino’s and Australia’s got talent was on the menu after some chilling on the beach. This was a pretty standard day but overall was actually pretty good. Once again, you appreciate home comforts so much more after such a long time of not having them.
So that brings me to today. We went out early and had a lovely 9 holes of golf, turns out spending loads of time not practising doesn’t help your game at all. Me and Izzy went round in 50 on a Par 28, pretty terrible I know, but a solid effort. We are meeting back up with Kirt and Shelly tonight to see what the Sydney club scene has to offer.
Thanks for reading peeps and I hope all is well back home.
Peace out guys
x
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