East Coast

23/10/13

From the red dust to the ritzy Melbourne, what a contrast. I arrive into Melbourne airport with my bag and swag and make my way to the city to meet up with a friend. I enjoy the fine dining Melbourne has to offer, such a novelty after a year of living out west. Then it is off to catch up with my road trip’n friend Cailin. We are travelling buddies from way back, covering New Zealand, Vietnam and Japan and soon to be Whistler, all for the love of snow boarding, except for Vietnam that is.

So we leave Melbourne with surf boards packed and limited camping gear and head for Wollongong. We are very grateful to have some free accommodation and food thanks to Cailin’s family. Now we are both living a year without a wage, any money saved is a massive bonus.

From the beautiful beaches of Wollongong to the quiet national park of Bootie Bootie near Forster. This was an interesting day… with 2 hours of delays and detours due to the devastating fires round Newcastle we were glad to get to our next camp before sunset. Of course the craziness did not end there. We attempt to set up camp on the beach, but get absolutely mauled by mosquitos. Like I said earlier, we had very limited camping gear, we kinda lacked the most important thing… a tent. We soon realised this was not going to work, so we lugged our gear back to the car and looked for some backpacker accommodation. We thought we had found a place, until we arrived to find what almost looked like a retirement village in Forster. So we bailed on this booking, and booked into a cabin in the national park. Now the irony here is that it was a Christian camp with a big sign saying how alcohol ruins lives, so we had to “sneak” our two cartons of grog into the cabin and hide our empty bottles. The alcohol helped numb the irritation from our mosquito bites, cause we were covered in itchy bites.

The next day we were off to Byron Bay. Finally we had a chance to get out our surf boards. I had bought a second hand short board in Wollongong, so this was going to be hilarious with an amateur surfer trying to stand up on a short board, but hey, I gave it a go. So one night in a backpackers and it was time to head home. A whirl wind trip, but it was nice to see 2000 kilometers of beautiful Australian landscapes as well as some amazing beaches.