We woke up the next day to find that it was raining so now we really had nothing left to do than drive back to Melbourne, unload all our stuff, and return the van. I was happy that I would not have to sleep in the van anymore because after the month I’d been starting too feel a bit claustrophobic at times since we did everything in such a small compartment. I was sick and tiered of moving our suitcases from the bed every night (yeah we’re not light packers) and then back on it during the day, because that’s the most secure location we could find for them. Everything had to be secure while driving or everything would go flying. Even when it was secure we still heard the dishes rattling in the cupboards and things shifting around. It was an experience but I don’t think I’ll ever travel with a campervan or motor home again. It’s just not very convenient. As we figured it, it wasn’t cheaper either. We could have rented a car and stayed at cheap motels for about the same or less so its all relative, but that’s what people do in AU they buy or rent obnoxiously large vehicles and drive around the country.
They also start blogging….hmm I have to stop being a stereotype. Our next trip is in a few weeks when Hendrik’s parents are coming to visit and we have more travel plans with them minus the campervan, so I’ll fill you in later.

Today we planned to go to the War Memorial since it’s a must do for tourists and since it only opened at 10 we stopped by the Australian American Memorial which was erected to express the thanks of the Australian people to the United States of America for its contribution to the defense of Australia. Since I am American I figured this memorial must be for me, and therefore, felt obligated to visit it, but I think the Australians could have thanked us with a better memorial. Not to be ungrateful or anything but it seemed like a copy of the Washington Memorial, but you couldn’t even go inside.

The Australian American Memorial

The War Memorial is actually a War Museum as well which is absolutely HUGE. Hendrik’s into war so he wanted to take the tour of the museum and it was 2.5 hours long and we maybe got through half of the museum. I couldn’t pay attention for that long. It was interesting at first but there was a very limited amount of facts that my brain could take in a day. I was completely worn out by the time Hendrik was ready to leave the Monument. It’s definitely worth a visit but I think you have to be interested in war to really appreciate it.

War Memorial

Before we left Canberra we decided to have an Arial view of the city. So we drove to the lookout tower that overlooks the city. It was a spectacular sight because we could see just how small Canberra really was. It was a spec amongst a whole lot of nothing, and the nothingness went on forever.

It was a great city to visit and I would have liked to stay there a few days more since there were many museums, but I could see why people wouldn’t want to live there, because there wasn’t that much to do, otherwise. Now we had to drive to Melbourne because in 2 days we had to return the bus. Not far out of Canberra, we happened to see what is probably the most spectacular historical monument and tourist attraction in Australia “The Dog on the Tuckerbox.” I’d never heard of it but at least a page is written about it on Wikipedia, so it must be important.

Dog on a Tuckerbox

That night we pulled into a rest area to sleep, which was nice because at night it was pitch black and the stars were the clearest and most distinct than we had yet seen them on our trip. We tried to take pictures but our cameras weren’t well qualified for taking night pictures.

Canberra is an interesting city since it’s new and plotted out to be a government city, which really reminded me of Washington D.C because of the symmetry.  The difference was that D.C is very pedestrian friendly and tourists stroll to all the monuments and buildings without a problem. Canberra is a very car oriented city. The first thing we visited was City Hill, a large park in the middle of a roundabout with a flagpole in the centre. The thing was that there were no pedestrian crossings to City Hill, so we had to dash across the three lane roundabout. There were park benches for people to utilise but no safe way for people to get there. On another occasion to get from the parliament building to the part of the city which had restaurants we found ourselves running across 3 different highways that had no pedestrian crossing, so that was an adventure in itself.  I thought the city plan was a bit ridiculous.

Also, it was rather unkempt. The main area in front of parliament was nice but City Hill was rather untidy.  This is probably because no one could get there easily to maintain it. There was also a path along the lake which led to the National museum of Australia which reminded me of the path that leads to the Jefferson Memorial but it wasn’t pretty at all, so that aspect needs some work. The National Museum had some really nice exhibits and was very informative and it’s well worth spending a few hours there.

Us on top of Parliament. In front is the old parliament and all the way in the back is Australian War Memorial

Next we visited the parliament building which was very spectacular. It is fairly new, opening in 1988 and therefore, it’s a very modern building with some interesting architecture. I particularly liked that the lawn stretched all the way to the top of it and the roof was basically a lawn which visitors could visit. We took the tour and learned about the building and the Australian government; it’s free so it’s well worth doing.

Parliament

Next we visited the old parliament which was much less impressive and the tour was too detailed and focused on politicians which I’ve never heard of so it was geared towards Australians. I didn’t particularly enjoy the old parliament but it was clear to see why they needed a new one.

Then we popped into the National Gallery of Australia which was also a good museum and we wanted to spend more time there but since it was 5:00 it closed and we had to leave.

Since I really wanted to see the blowhole in action we drove back to the blowhole in the morning but it was equally pathetic as the day before. So we headed off and drove to the Illawarra tree top walk. It is a new skywalk in the temperate rainforest of the Southern Highlands. The road which led to it warned that no vehicle over 10 meters should drive on the road. We didn’t know how long we were but I “measured” it with our electrical chord and decided that we were only 9 meters long. We decided it’s a go and Hendrik drove up the mountain as the path got narrower and narrower. At the most sharp, steep bend we had a car behind us and one going the other way towards us so I just held my breath and prayed that we wouldn’t stall because the engine was making gurgling sounds as if it was going to crap out at any second. I don’t know how the engine managed to pull up through the bend, but it did. That was the hardest part of the road and we made it to the treetop walk.

View from the treetop walk

The treetop walk was new and the tracks from the construction of the structure were still very visible so we thought it was pretty ironic that they had signs everywhere saying how they preserve the nature considering they had to rip the nature out. It was nice but it wasn’t worth the money they charged.

We planed to get to Canberra today and had to continue driving. On the way we drove through Gouldburn and saw the big merino which is a type of sheep regarded as having the finest and softest wool. Personally, I thought this was the most impressive big thing we had seen.

big merino

The scenery on the way was beautiful and at one point we drove along this huge valley with sheep and cows grazing in it. We pulled over at the lookout and a sign said it was Lake George. I thought it was funny to see sheep grazing on a lake but apparently it empties and fills on a cyclical basis. It was a very impressive sight, probably more so than it if was filled with water.

Lake George

We found a campsite near Canberra but did not go into the city because it was already evening so we just had a relaxing night.

We went to the Buddhist temple near Wollongong the next morning which was pretty and the workers were enthusiastic to talk to us and explain all there is to know about the temple. We ate lunch in their restaurant which I enjoyed especially since it was vegetarian.

Then we headed a bit further south to Kiama. We weren’t planning on spending too much time there but Kiama was adorable, so we spent the night there. It was a cute little town with pretty nature around it, the most touristy being the blowhole. A blowhole is a hole in the rocks by the sea that when the waves crash water blows through the hole creating the impression of a blowhole. We went to see it, but it wasn’t spraying too high, which I was disappointed in. At most it sprayed about 5 feet. We went to the information centre where all the brochures showed the water from the blowhole towering over people’s heads. I asked the lady in charge how often the blow hole looked like that. She said, “Almost every day, it’s been a while since I’ve seen it like this.” Great. There were two blowholes in Kiama and the second one was smaller and we went to see it as well with equal success.

We left Lake Macquarie early since we had a lot to do the next day. We wanted to go surfing in Manley, since we knew there was usually good surfing there and we hadn’t yet been able to surf on the trip. Miraculously, we made it to the beach without a hindrance through Sydney morning rush hour, but when we arrive there, there were hardly any waves. A few waves would come every 20 minutes. We decided to go for it anyway since we had come all the way out to Manly and we saw others trying too. It wasn’t a warm day and we rented wet suits as well as surfboards and therefore we didn’t get to use our new rash shirts which still had their tags attached. It was a very slow surfing day, and I only caught about 3 waves but never managed to stand. We had to leave Manley by noon and go to the opposite end of Sydney to Kingsgrove because there we had the rest of our stuff in storage.

Sydney

We had to take apart the whole van and luckily there was a lot of storage space under the bed which we utilized to the fullest and we were able to fit at least three times as many belongings than we had currently with us. We thought we would be even slower than we had been previously which was about 100km/h. We always joked that even if we wanted to speed we couldn’t. We could drive with the pedal to the medal and the van would not go faster. It was like cruse control. Going uphill was terrible because it would slow down drastically and we had to down shift so it wouldn’t stall. The engine would growl and the speedometer would slowly decrease and if there was a passing lane, cars would be passing us. Sometimes on rare occasions the van would have its good days and it would get up to 130 km/h which was even above speed limit. We kept trying to figure out what cased the sudden surge of speed, opening the water tank, full gas tank, air conditioning, but nothing seemed to do the trick. And now when we were so heavy the van had a good day. We drove down to Wollongong and briefly walked around the town, beach, and lighthouse.

I was thrilled when I woke up this morning and saw that the sun was shining. We were late coming to the beach since the gate of the campsite was locked and we had to go around and were worried we might miss the tour. When we arrived to the parking lot surrounded by pyramid shaped tank traps or Dragon’s teeth there were two 4wd cars there. The beach was fortified against a possible attack by Imperial Japanese forces during WWII and the pyramids are what’s left of it. I was expecting a bus and more people but we were the only ones there. The driver of one of the cars motioned for us and he told us we were the only tour participants. We assumed he just picked us up in his own private car. Unlike our Fraser island tour guide, this one seemed pretty uninformed and just drove us to the locations without too much explanation.

First we did a bit of sandboarding which is like sledding but on sand dunes. We did that in two locations. It was scary at first but then became fun. The really bad part was walking back up because it was so steep and we were out of shape. So we didn’t sandboard for very long because we got too tired.

Sandboarding

Stockton Beach is less than 3.5 km from a military base and we saw and heard many military airplanes fly over us as we rode along the beach. The next stop was Tin City, an actual town in the dunes with a handful of inhabitants. It was first built to store provisions for shipwrecked sailors because the beach was a popular place to become shipwrecked with almost 100 wrecks between Newcastle and Port Stephens. It was also where Mad Max with Mel Gibson was filmed and I feel like I have to see the movie now. It was interesting to see how some people chose to live, I definitely wouldn’t. The last thing to see on the trip is the wreck of the MV Sygna, a Norwegian bulk carrier, which we stopped at and observed.  I thought Stockton Beach was very unique and really enjoyed the visit.

Tin city

Since it was only midday we drove to Newcastle and had a look around the town. There was a nice beach, but we didn’t have time to go swimming, and a lookout over the beach. The centre was cute and there was a lookout over the central train station so we climbed the tower and had a panoramic view of Newcastle. It was a nice town to have some lunch in and walk around but there was not much else to do or see.

That evening we decided to stay in Lake Macquarie, for no particular reason other than we had liked Port Macquarie, so we figured Lake Macquarie was nice too. It wasn’t particularly nice and we could tell we were getting to a more populated area since people did not seem as friendly and the bbq’s weren’t free anymore. The lake wasn’t a swimming lake and may have been nice if we had a boat but we weren’t too impressed.

Today we went on a kayaking tour.  We wanted to go sea kayaking, and the tour promised sea kayaking. Unfortunately the sea part of it was very brief but we did spend a lot of time going through, under and around mangroves. I think mangroves are cool but I think there is a maximum amount of mangroves that a single person should see in their lifetime and I definitely OD’ed. In between the mangroves in the taller trees there were hordes of bats so many of them that they turned the tops of the trees black as they all slept upside down. The guide started to make noise by clapping and bashing his oar on the kayak, so we all did it and the bats would wake up and squeal and start flying around in a panic. Yes, it was a bit cruel waking the creatures up in the middle of their night, but it was really impressive.

Stockton Beach

The following day we drove down to Port Stephens home of Stockton Beach which has sand dunes that stretch almost to Newcastle. The campsite we stayed at was right next to the beach and this is the first campsite where we saw lots of permanent residences where a shed was attached at the side to the door of a trailer. So it was a bit depressing for to see and since we were practically the only motor home there we felt very out of place. We went for a walk on the beach and saw the most spectacular sun set. I had booked a tour of the beach for the next morning, and since the rain started that night I was scared that it would be cancelled which made me sad since this was one of the things I was looking forward to from the start of the trip.

We had to keep pushing further south and crossed the state border to New South Wales and therefore only had a brief stop in Byron Bay which reminded me of Noosa. I was getting a bit bored of the beach-small-backpacker/tourist towns at this point because they all began to look like each other. It was over-run by run down campervans and tanned people in slinky clothing. I didn’t mind only spending a few hours there and moving on. A little further was the town of Ballina. There’s nothing there so they built a restaurant right next to the main road but to attract patrons they built a giant shrimp on top of it. This big thing was sadly one of the more impressive ones.

We stayed at Lennox Head that night and then continued south towards Coffs Harbour, but we didn’t quite make it there since we stopped at a campsite before Coffs Harbour.  We spent the rest of the day skipping rocks on the beach, jumping on the jumping pillow, and trying to make friends with a few resident wallabies who were less friendly than the ones at the zoo.

Jumping pillow

Coff’s Harbour is home to the first of Australia’s big things, the big banana. It’s located next to a banana plantation and also now an amusement centre which contain an artificial ski slope, an ice skating rink, tobogganing and a monorail tour of the banana plantations. We didn’t do any of the activities or buy any really tacky souvenirs shaped like bananas, and you name it they had it in banana shape and color.

The Harbour itself is really pretty and there is an island, called Muttonbird Island, which is connected to the harbour by a manmade breakwater so everyone walks to the island and has a short hike around it, which is well worth doing. A real-scale model of Captain Cook’s ship the ‘Endeavour’ made the scenery even more beautiful and ironically we had seen the same ship in Sydney in Darling Harbour. It is a museum and we wanted to go in because we didn’t visit it in Sydney but the exhibit only opened the next day and we had to be in Port Macquarie by then.