From Sydney to Brisbane via Myall Lakes, Limeburners, Yuraygir, Bundjalung and Lamington National Park as well as Byron Bay

On our way from Sydney to Brisbane, we sleep almost every night in a different national park. Sometimes for free without a shower, sometimes well-equipped spots. The beaches are really amazing, with massive, very powerful waves. The beaches are so big that you often don't meet anyone and have the place to yourself. Each beach had something special. One had huge dunes, making you feel like you're in the desert (Myall Lakes NP), another had hundreds of crabs (Limeburners Creek and Yuraygir NP), and another had countless goannas (Yuraygir NP). In Bundjalung National Park, the so-called delicate coffee rocks have formed on the beach due to weathering. Lush green rainforest with gigantic boyoong trees, large ferns, and twisted vines becomes more and more frequent!

We have done various longer and shorter walks. In Yuraygir NP, there were so many spiders in the bush that it took us forever to cover a short distance. Countless spider webs with the spider lurking in the middle of the path... We didn't want to destroy the spider's web or really get close to the spiders. Tricky situation... We sweated a lot 😅 In Bundjalung National Park, a walk led us between the coast and a river, the Jerusalem Creek. In subtropical Lamington National Park in Queensland, we couldn't avoid getting close to leeches in the rainforest anymore... We had previously encountered a leech in Murramarang NP in New South Wales, which unsettled us and resulted in us walking the trail much faster than usual 😄 In Lamington National Park, we encounter MANY leeches, which led to us running and jumping during the 15 km walk. An experience of a different kind... Thankfully, we have gaiters that help to keep the creatures from crawling into our shoes/socks. I also had rain pants that I would have loved to pull up to my armpits, despite the intense heat and high humidity. Poor David suffered a lot and had several panic attacks 😂 He now knows which is his absolute least favorite animal... and we survived all of it 😊

In Byron Bay, we were at the easternmost point of Australia. The city itself is full of surfers, backpackers, and hippies... We like the atmosphere, we find a beautiful hippie market with delicious food and drinks (fried coconut and ginger beer), but it's quite touristy here. After a few days without a shower and always bathing in the sea, the freshwater shower is a blessing!

All in all, a wonderful road trip! It's unbelievable that we only have 2 weeks left in Australia. For the past few days, we've been working on a farm in Narangba... we'll report more soon ✌

On our journey from Sydney to Brisbane, we sleep practically every night in a different national park. The campgrounds where we spend the night, some free, are very nice, and in all of them, we can enjoy magnificent beaches where we are practically alone. Each beach has something special, like in Myall Lake National Park, which has huge dunes that make you feel like you are walking in the middle of the desert. In the beach of Bundjalung National Park, we could see the Coffe Rocks, which, as their name indicates, look like they are made of coffee, and they crumble like coffee, giving the beach sand many different shades of brown. And in all the beaches, we come across many goannas.

Aside from the beaches, we have done different hiking trails in the parks. Short, long, with spiders, calm, along the coast, through the jungle... but a chapter apart deserves the route through Lamington National Park in Queensland, just before reaching Brisbane. It is a route through the rainforest, since it is a subtropical climate, and what started out as a wonderful route with beautiful vegetation ended up being a bit of a nightmare. As we descended from the mountain to the valley and approached wetter areas, the leeches became more active. I had never seen one before, and I don't recommend it. They start climbing up your feet little by little, and before you know it, there are 3 or 4 on your knees trying to climb up who knows where. And this happened every ten minutes with some panic attacks in between. We finished the route with empty adrenaline reserves and very tired from the stress, but it was also worth it for the extraordinary landscapes we saw.

Our next stop was the tourist city of Byron Bay, where we were at the easternmost point of Australia. A city full of young tourists trying to learn to surf.

The next point where we will spend the last few weeks is Narangba, where we will be doing Wwoofing with the Costantini family :)