Well after Sydney Pat and I continued north. We went to Blue Mountains National Park and they really look blue. Many of the longer trails were closed due to fire danger since most of Australia is experience a drought, fire has been a problem. We only stayed a night in the park and walked some shorter trails. After leaving we headed along the New England Hwy stopping along the way at some local orchards getting really good cheap fruit (berries, apricots and even fresh warm apple pie). The further north we go the warmer it gets. Also along the way north we stopped at a few more smaller National Parks went on a walk in the rainforest coming across 4 goannas one which was about 3 feet long within 5 feet of where we were walking. It was very cool, neat animals! One evening we had a visit from a possum who was very curious about our open van door, I thought he might hop in with us. Other activities on our way included walking on the beautiful beaches, relaxing and just hangin out.
While on our up to Byron Bay (which used to be a real hippie town; now a big touristy town) Pat took the out of the blue opportunity to go tandem hang gliding. We went up to this cliff where we saw people hang gliding, planning to watch and then the instructor walked up to us and asked we wanted to go tandem and me being the wimp I am declined, but Pat went and loved it. It was very cool watching him, he was up for ¨ö hour and looked funny flying with birds who were very interested in the gliders.
Byron Bay was nice a bit to crowded, but we strolled around had a PB and J sandwich at the beach and people watched. The next morning we had brekkie up on Cape Byron near the Lighthouse there; me eating my Rice Krispies (Rice Bubbles as they are called in Australia), and Pat eating granola. While our coffee was brewing we met a Swedish couple Johanna and Martin brother and sister. He lives in Sydney for the past 10 years and his sister, and parents were visiting for the holidays from Sweden. Either way we had a bit of an incident after sharing our coffee with them Johanna became extremely dizzy and almost fell after the coffee, became nauseated and once she was feeling better said, ¡°What did you put in that coffee?¡± Well anyway we were fine and explained it¡¯s the same coffee we have been drinking for the past 3 weeks. I don¡¯t think they will ever forget the Americans that shared coffee with them. Either way we enjoyed there company for the short time we were with them.
The day of driving and looking for a place to sleep was a bit more challenging as we were driving the Gold Coast Hwy, which is (unknown to us until we arrived) a HUGE high rise, casino resort area similar to the huge resort areas on the coast in Florida it was the first time in Australia that we experienced a traffic jam. It is a popular get away and it is summer break for the kids at school and also the christmas holiday and spending the holiday at the beach is very popular.
Well we finally found an out of the way spot in a parking lot in a town called Jacob¡¯s Well and learned that night after a strong rain and really cool thunderstorm that the van leaks in spots, resulting in wet carpet which after awhile started smelling of mildew o well it¡¯s comical.
On christmas eve morning we were both in need of a shower, so we had a free shower in a truck stop. That evening we found a great spot to park the van for the night near the beach and a wood bbq. We went to the butcher bought some steaks then to the bottle shop and bought a bottle of wine and had a candlelit dinner at the picnic area by the beach. When it turned dark we sat on the beach drank wine and watched some far off in the distance fireworks from the larger resort towns north of where we were. Besides not having family and friends around it was a great x-mas eve!
On chrissy day we ended up meeting a dutch couple Peter and Caroline. We had chrissy dinner with them, but since none of the supermarkets were open we just combined any of the left over food in our cabinets and made dinner together. Dinner was 3 sausages, buttered noodles, baked beans, pasta salad, and fruit salad, a couple beers and a bit of wine that we all shared. Peter and Caroline never had baked beans and were a bit reluctant when trying them, but ended up liking them enough to have seconds. We both parked our vans up on Point Perry a beautiful view overlooking Coolum Beach which we made home for 5 nights. Even some locals started to recognise us and we had short conversations with them at the beach each day with there dog Ozzie. The last day we were there we were having a barbie on the beach and they walked up to us laughing and said, ¡°We live here and don¡¯t spend as much time here as you guys do.¡± They were in their late 60¡¯s and we enjoyed there brief visits and their dog was very cute!
We spent 2 ¨ö days with Peter and Caroline one day walking in Noosa Heads National Park where they both tried a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich for the first time. They both seemed to like it, but before trying it couldn¡¯t believe that it is a normal thing to eat in the states. It was a bummer saying goodbye.
After they left Pat and I finally decided to book a trip to the Great Barrier Reef. We will be on the boat December 31-January 3 diving about 10 different dives. We are currently in Airlie Beach the main base to go diving out of the Whitsunday Islands. Last night we had a few beers at a bar outdoors listening to some live music. We ended up sitting next to a guy (jeff) who will be on the dive boat with us, so we talked with him for awhile he is a local and has been diving on the reef a couple times and said it is great. We are looking forward to it. We may be getting pictures on the site soon. We developed all 11 rolls and have some really good ones. If all works out we should have pictures uploaded today. Happy New Year to everyone!
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