On the road on the east coast of Australia

The original plan was to work after our visit to Sydney. However, Judy - our contact person at the Flower Farm that we want to visit - wrote to us that they will only be hiring new employees in early December. Therefore, Plan B was devised. Plan B is as follows:
First, we will go to the Blue Mountains since they are right next to Sydney and just a stone's throw away from Merryland. Then, we will visit Port Stephens, South West Rocks, Dorrigo National Park, and the Gold Coast. Since our flight to Chile departs from Brisbane (the flight is finally booked and we will continue on April 25, 2017), we will explore Brisbane at the very end. Since the journey there will follow the coast, the return journey will mostly go through the inland so that we don't have to see everything twice. We also considered going to Alice Springs during that time, but it would be about 6000km without a properly functioning air conditioning and at a maximum speed of 90km/h, driving 400km a day. The only options would have been to fly or take a transfer car. However, since the flights to and from Alice Springs are quite expensive (about $200 per flight, compared to $50 for Melbourne - Sydney), we initially dismissed the idea and will try to fit it in at the end.

So, we drove to the Blue Mountains and equipped ourselves with information material at the Visitor Center.

There are even some official free campsites - sometimes we are not quite sure how welcome we are at some places - although all of them are around Blackheath. As we were getting back into the car after the information point, a spider crawled in through the open window. It was about the size of a daddy longlegs, but its body was about one centimeter and its legs were ten times as thick. As a spider lover, I was naturally thrilled and moved as far away from the door as possible. The stupid thing even settled in the door handle. Fortunately, it didn't like it in there so much, so it quickly crawled out again 🕸 🕷🕷

In the Blue Mountains, we first went to the Wentworth Falls. There was a 1000-step path down to the valley of the waterfall. Since it was pretty hot and, to be honest, 1000 steps in one direction is quite a lot!, we didn't go down there. Instead, we took a different path that was signposted as 'only a few steps'. At the end of the day, we went to Evans Lookout, where we could also spend the night. From there, we had a beautiful view over the valley.

On the second day, we went to the Katoomba Cascades and waterfall. We walked 3km in one direction from the rock formation 'Three Sisters' to the waterfall.

We reached the cascades along the way. To be honest, they were more exciting than the waterfall. So far, we haven't seen any really impressive waterfalls in Australia. The sound of the water is always loud, but it's just a little splash.

However, you could walk along the path near the cliff and had a great view of the Blue Mountains. While reading the information material on our way to the waterfall, Tom also found out where the name Blue Mountains comes from. Due to the many eucalyptus trees, the eucalyptus vapor rises from the leaves when the temperatures are high, which appears blue.. or something like that. In any case, there is always a blue veil over the trees in the distance.
When we reached our accommodation for the night, we made a lot of effort to attach a mosquito net to our tailgate since mosquitoes tend to fly around in the evening and we don't want to accommodate them in the car overnight 🐝

However, since the tailgate holder is broken, we always place a Pringles can between the spare tire and the tailgate.
During the night, we had a visitor who scratched its back on our car. It even made the car shake for a moment. I suspect it was a wombat, but the flashlight didn't reach far enough for us to see anything.

On the next day, we headed towards the coast and Port Stephens. In the end, we ended up near One Mile at a campsite. You really can't complain for $25 per night for the two of us, including Wi-Fi and a pool. We spent two nights here and rested from hiking. We also need to acclimatize to the sun a little before we start working 😉
When I was sitting in the camp kitchen on the second day to charge our phones and tablet, a huge lizard suddenly walked through the kitchen, albeit at a very leisurely pace.

At first, I was quite shocked and was about to climb onto the table - the animal was at least 2m long! - and it was heading towards me. But when some other campers arrived who didn't panic, I calmed down. The lizard also found its way out of the kitchen and wandered around the campsite for a while.

When we continued our journey, I wanted to go to South West Rocks because I hoped they would be as beautiful as the Remarkable Rocks on Kangaroo Island. Unfortunately, that was not the case, but I was able to take a few long exposures and annoy Tom with it. We spent the night in a small town near the Dorrigo National Park. The place was right behind a pub, which was also well-visited. Some families with children were also there. But there was live music playing and the atmosphere seemed relaxed overall. It didn't affect our sleep anyway.

On the way to the Dorrigo National Park, we experienced our first bushfire, although initially we weren't sure if the fire brigade might be burning something to prevent worse. We didn't see much fire, only occasionally there were a few small fires and smoke along the road. In the national park, we went to the Rainforest Centre from where we walked a 6km circuit.

The path led through the adjacent area and past huge trees and wild turkeys. It was really beautiful, and the temperatures in the forest were pleasant, although you still got a bit sweaty. In the rainforest, you didn't have to worry about sun protection, only about insect protection.
When we arrived back at the visitor center, the staff informed us that it was indeed a forest fire and the road we had come on was now closed. Since we wanted to avoid driving the same way back, we initially planned to go to Coffs Harbour via Ulong. The return route took us on gravel roads through the bush - poor car. We didn't see much either, except a baby roo hopping across the road before we caught up with it while racing through the forest at 30km/h.

In Coffs Harbour, we bought a new cooler box. The first one didn't live up to our expectations. Also, it was a bit too small since the 5kg ice pack we always get for cooling didn't fit in it. In this case, bigger is better - note it down for next time remember.
This day, we went to Byron Bay, the easternmost point of mainland Australia.

Here, we enjoyed lying on the beach and swimming. The water was even relatively warm.

In between, we had a little mud fight - after all, we're still kids 😂and there were some strange jellyfish on the beach. They look like a mixture of gemstone and shell when they are relatively fresh (meaning slightly slippery), and later they inflate like balloons. They were scattered all over the beach.

In the evening, we drove to a campsite at Mount Warning, I wonder why it's called that? Since the communication between Wikicamps and Google Maps was rather poor, Google Maps wanted to take us up the mountain instead of to the campsite. Since the path seemed strange to Tom, we checked again - and behold, we were going the wrong way - but fortunately, we didn't miss the destination by a lot.

The next stop was Gold Coast, below Brisbane, where we arrived today.

That means we have already completed half of the journey. In this case, the journey is more important than the destination, as they say. The Gold Coast has beautiful fine sand, but unfortunately no shade. This is not ideal for Tom, who, as soon as he looks into the sun for too long, takes on a crab-like skin color. We briefly visited Miami Beach and then settled into the campsite Nobby Beach Holiday Village. It's not our cheapest accommodation at $46 per night, but it's beautiful here and we have our own electricity, Wi-Fi, and a pool. We have never camped so luxuriously on a campsite before.

Now we have been in Australia for a month already, and it feels like half an eternity. We have seen so much and driven thousands of kilometers that it sounds unrealistic to accomplish all of this in just over 4 weeks. But it's time for us to start working before the 'saturation process' sets in and we can no longer fully appreciate the experiences or the memories fade.