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.

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.

Day 6. We went to pick up the van we had rented to start the road-tip part of our vacation. I was excited since I had never been on a proper road trip. We got the model of van with a shower and toilet because Hendrik wanted the luxury, if it was up to me, I would have gone for the basic model. We had to watch a DVD which showed us how to operate everything and I wanted to hold on to the DVD for the future, but we weren’t allowed.
Then we were brought to our new home for the next month. We were excited to see that it was a Britz, and not a backpacker campervan which meant we were upgraded to the newer model since the one we had ordered wasn’t available, but it was huge. It was the size of a small bus. We were both quite terrified of the look of the thing since neither of us had ever driven anything that size. We wondered whether we needed a special license but AU allows any tourist to drive a bus if they want, I guess. It was daunting. So we had a bus with the stick on the opposite side than we were used to and we had to drive on the wrong side of the road. At least we were well trained from Ireland to drive on the wrong side of the road. Hendrik had to drive it first because there was no way I was getting behind the wheel.
I was one terrified passenger though and gritted my teeth and tensed my muscles as Hendrik inched the vehicle out of the rental lot. He stalled quite a bit, and I was only glad we got the vehicle in a small quiet town and not Sydney. It was a hair-raising start to a vacation. We loaded our suitcases and then decided to drive to Kuranda a small tourist trap village in the mountains surrounded by a rainforest. We saw it on a lot of brochures and it was close to Cairns so we thought why not. We drove to the sky rail which is a gondola that takes you up to Kuranda but it was so expensive to ride we decided it wasn’t worth it.
Since Hendrik was determined not to drive the whole month he said I should try in the parking lot which I did. I stalled over and over again and ran over curbs that he soon took the wheel from me, which I didn’t mind since I was shaking.
We decided to drive to Kuranda instead, which was a really bad idea since the roads were windy and narrow and we were first timers driving a heavy bus. I clenched my muscles and held my breath on every turn, and when we finally got to Kuranda it was deserted. Everything was closed. Apparently all the tour buses from Cairns come there in the morning so by the afternoon the town shuts down so there was nothing to do. One last pie shop was opened and we asked the owner where the tourist train was since we had seen it on many brochures. “There’s no tourist train here, but a real one that goes to Cairns like you have in London or New York.” Right, except that it was designed for tourists and only went twice a day, but we thought it was hilarious that he compared Kuranda to New York and London. With nothing else to do we went on a rainforest boardwalk. It was nice and relaxing to be out of our bus.
Afterwards Hendrik decided I was going to drive again. To get out of the mountain top parking lot I had to go up a small hill on which I stalled, of course, and had a car behind me. I had trouble starting the engine and whenever it did start I would stall again so I panicked and Hendrik had to take over and my dread for driving the bus became worse.
We regretted going to Kuranda and decided to go into a nearest campsite and the nearest one was around port Douglas. At least after the descent from Kuranda the road became straighter but it was also dark. Once checked in we were both trembling and hating the bus, me especially since I didn’t want to drive it. Our first day on the road and we were already behind schedule because according to plan we were supposed to be in Cape Tribulation. To make things even worse we realized we left our stuffed bear, Walibi (not to be confused with an AU Wallaby) at the hotel in Cairns.