New South Wales (part 1)

Monday 14th April – Time for the long ride down to the east coast on a road Tracy is now familiar with. It isn't an exciting ride, without the ups and downs of the road in from the south but this makes for easy driving and a quick run. We are soon on the edge of Sydney and head for Granville where Don has a property where we can park the camper (it was a rental home that burned down several years ago so he maintains what remains of the house as a shed with shower and has plenty of room for his – and several others if need be- camper.

Tuesday 15th April – The weather is dull and rainy but we head for the nearby train station for the ride into the city. First stop is Circular Quay on the harbour for travel information before we walk over to the Opera House. This is Tim's first experience of Sydney Harbour and despite the overcast conditions it lives up to it's billing as one of the world's great city waterfronts. Trena, Tracy and Tim take a tour of the Opera House which gives a great insight into the amazing design, both outside (where new techniques had to be devised to match the architects vision for the sail design) and inside (which was constructed entirely separately after disputes over money caused the original architect to leave the construction). The tour also allows you to watch rehearsals on some of the many stages for productions that are more likely to feature dance, comedy, orchestra or plays than opera.

Next we take the ferry over to Manly on the coast north of the harbour before returning to Sydney so Tim and Tracy can join the local Hash House Harriers run while Trena and Treavor find an local bar.

Wednesday 16th April – Today the weather is no better but we head for the city again, this time catching the Rivercat ferry service down the Parramatta River. This s an excellent way to approach the city following the waterway that once carried goods back and forth from the port and the hinterland, affording great views as the city nears. Today Trena and Tracy want to meet up with some of Australia's famous animals and head for a wildlife sanctuary while Treavor and Tim catch the ferry out to Watson's Bay for a look at the imposing cliffs and old military installations that dominate the southern approaches to Sydney Harbour. The weather is pretty grey with a number of passing squalls but things start to clear later in the day and a walk over the bridge finally provides a few pictures of the harbour with sunlight.

After dark we take a walk around the centre of the city, visiting a couple of historic pubs before finding a Korean restaurant for a massive feast of food (more massive than anticipated when we ordered!). To walk off some of the calories we climbed back up to the bridge for a few night shots of the city.

Thursday 17th April – With no end in sight for the dull weather we decide to start putting in some mileage north, but decide en route to divert to the major wine growing region of the Hunter Valley. A pleasant afternoon ensues with Tim driving and the others partaking of the produce and stocking the “cellar” of the camper. We meet Don and Ada with their friends at one winery and end the day with a picnic at another: a pleasant way to finish but requiring us to drive in the dark and find a campground with late check in.

Seal Rocks has been recommended to us as a good stop so we haul ourselves up there as the clock ticks past nine. Luckily we choose a small beach campsite off the beaten track and this proves (like many of its ilk) to have no security gate so we can find a site and pay in the morning. There is even enough floodlighting to make putting up the camper extension (never the easiest job) a relative breeze.

Friday 18th April – In the morning we drive around to Seal Rocks, a headland with some impressively patterned rocks, excellent seaside scenery and enough rockpools with life to keep Tracy enthralled for hours. A short walk takes us up to the Sugarloaf Lighthouse for more views and a sheltered bay on the walk back gives us more pools with more marine life. Final stop for the day is in Forster-Tuncarry, the small and rather unexciting town nearby.

Saturday 19th April – Next stop on our road to Brisbane is Coffs Harbour, a town billed as the banana capital of Australia and where we hope to find a little more life. The weather is not co-operative though and after an uninspiring drive in the rain it is still pouring down as we arrive, and not really relenting overnight.

Sunday 20th April – We already knew that there are some leaks in the extension section, largely solved with a tarpaulin over the top, but this morning we discover rain is getting in the main part of the van and trickling down to soak the spare bed Trena is using.

If it is raining on the coast you may as well drive into the rainforest and after vsiting a local craft market (conveniently in a covered parking garage) we duly climb into the hills around Dorrigo where... it is raining. We end up driving further in the rainforest than anticipated but Dorrigo Falls are impressive in the wet (we are told Coffs Harbour had 15cm/ 6in rain the night preceding and day of our arrival) and the walk in the Dorrigo National Park shows the rainforset in typical misty damp conditions. We also get a glimpse of our first Rock Wallaby.

Once back in town and despite the weather we are at least able to play with the flocks of lorikeets at the campground and pay a visit to the local fish co-op to stock up on fishy snacks before we find a motel for Trena and Treavor to escape the damp end of the camper. This escape from the campground scene also allows them to find some locals to party the night away with.

Monday 21st April – A much better day with clear skies allowing a few pictures of Coffs Harbour before we head of for the Queensland border. Another long day of driving with a view to staying somewhere on the Gold Coast so we stop in Tweed Heads, a small town bisected (apparently randomly with nothing to tell the visitor whether he is in Queensland or NSW) by the state border. This does not matter much at this time of year but must be confusing in summer where NSW observes daylight saving while Queensland does not!

We can't find much about the Gold Coast in the Information Centre here, but do manage to screw up when Tim who is driving has to move on a few blocks from where he dropped the others to avoid getting in the way of traffic... with all the cell phones in the truck. Eventually he is able to round up the missing Erneys and the journey continues. We take the beachfront road to eye up likely stopping points and end up in Surfers Paradise... the hear of the Coast's party scene.

We drop the camper at a convenient site and Treavor is able to rustle up a great deal on a hotel room on the intenet so we drop them in town before rendezvousing later for Malaysian food.