The roads in Australia are pretty much the same as back home, but with about a month worth of driving under my belt, most of which being in an automatic, living in a wee country town and having never driven anything older than myself (the van is a 1979 model) things were pretty tense at the wheel. It was pretty funny all round and I’m glad to say we all survived.
The road out of Sydney is pretty much a straight one, although we somehow managed to get lost three times. What can I say guys, it all adds to the adventure : )
Once on the open road we all calmed down a bit and settled into our Ozzie road trip experience, which is after all what we came here for. As soon as you get out of the built up region around Sydney you realise that Australia truly is a wild country. You hit rainforest and deep jungle pretty quickly, with rivers and mountains cropping up all over the place which is pretty spectacular. Of course my eyes were on the road the whole time.
With my foot to the floor in top gear (that’s fourth!) we managed an impressive 110 km p/h, unless of course there was a slight incline in the road in which case we soon slowed to around 60! This was lots of fun, especially when you have a convoy of angry lorry drivers in your rear view mirror! As it turns out there was something wrong with the accelerator in the engine, which Gerard soon fixed. I think that was a couple days away though, so at the moment it was all still fun and games!
Our first ‘port’ of call was Port Macquarie, where we arrived at about four o’clock, just in time to get pitched up and settled before sunset at around half past five. The campsite where we were staying was pretty nice, right on the beach front where huge waves were pounding the shoreline. This is definitely surfing territory! We soon got an itching to head out and explore the town, which is a quiet holiday town essentially. With it being the middle of winter the place was really quiet, but we did manage to find a nice place to eat and have a couple of drinks called the Hog’s Breath.
We decided with how quiet the place was we would only stay for two nights. The next day was spent fixing up and discovering the van, with some modifications required so someone could sleep in the roof compartment. Let’s just say that the first night in the van with the three of us sleeping on the bed was a little too cosy!
Danny takes to the wheel for a bit of white knuckle driving
Shad up back
On the road and flying
Some 'out the window' sights
Shad soon passed out!
Only to wake up in the bar at Port Macquarie
Surfs up dude
The boys behind the bar in the Hog's Breath. There weren't many other people there so these guys provided the majority of the night's banter. Cheers guys!
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