Three weeks ago Suus and I started our big adventure, which we have been looking forward to for years. We’re traveling through Australia with the camper. We now drive from Sydney to Byron bay, to make some incredible stops. But a lot has happened already! We did some koala spotting along the Great Ocean Road and effortlessly infiltrated the alternative lifestyle of the city of Melbourne. We then chased wombats and emus in Wilson’s Promontory Nature Park and were bored to death in the capital Canberra. No, without kidding, this is shaping up to be a journey of epic proportions. We see the most bizarre things from our own dream house on wheels. Because that camper is the invention for traveling cheaply!
In the back there is a kilo bag of bacon and a bowl of eggs for a ‘Breakfast of Champions’. During the day we drop the van along the beach for a swim and in the evening we cook whatever happens to be on sale at Woolworths, Australia’s Wallmart. You can get a bottle of wine from 2.5 euros, add some toast and dips and we will convert the camper into a home theater with a movie on the laptop. We usually sleep somewhere in the middle of nowhere. We just open the roof and then look at the thousands of stars from our bed for another half hour. If we are lucky, we occasionally see a kangaroo hopping past from the car. And all that, practically for free. Who would have thought that?
The beating heart of Australia: Sydney
It is quite different to end up in such a large metropolis after touring around the open plains. When we get near Sydney you will notice that this is the busiest and most hectic place in the country. After the first sign with ‘Welcome to Sydney’, we drive another 1,5 hours to really get to the city. We will stay there for the first night in a paid place in a Holiday Park.
There are no free camping spots available and although we would prefer to crash the camper against the famous Opera House and fry an egg and bacon on our stove in the morning between the buses of Japanese tourists; we easily risk fines of a thousand dollars in these types of areas! Let alone the fact that I usually ‘water’ the flowers in the area about twice at night. Also not very convenient in such a mega city. I might splash someone by accident and those Australians are already nice and hot-tempered.
Parking in Sydney can be a hell of a job!
Camping is difficult, but parking is just as difficult. Our first meeting with Sydney takes place on Sunday. This means we spend half a day there for a few bucks, but the days after that are a disaster! There are parking garages in the center with rates of two hundred euros per day! Do they park that car in a luxury hotel with a spa and rear window massage or what? I had a week’s holiday in Asia cheaper than that! So we drive a little further out of town and within a half hour walk we actually find a free place. At least, the parking signs are about as easy to decipher as the cryptogram in the Saturday edition of the New York Times, so you always have to wait and see: we have no fine, so it was ‘free’.
We shop in the city center, visit the beautiful Victoria Building, chill in Hyde Park and especially hang out at Circular Quay; the most beautiful place in Sydney on the harbour. We visit the Opera House and indeed see more Japanese than on the Tokyo exhibition floor. Quite a wonderful experience, this city!
Sydney isn’t just the biggest city of Australia: amazing beaches!
The advantage of Sydney is that it is not that difficult to escape the crowds. You can drive in almost any direction and within an hour you will be standing with your feet on a lovely piece of sand. And I’m not even talking about a brown strip along a green pool of water á la Scheveningen, sorry about that The Hague, no, really beaches that hurt your eyes, the bright colors are so beautiful.
We choose the most beautiful and walk the famous Cliff Top Walk from Coogie Beach to the popular Bondi Beach. The views are unbelievable! Our favorite is a little further on when we drive to South Head, the head of the south, with an amazing view of the Sydney skyline.
The Grand Canyon of Sydney, Australia: Blue Mountains
We’ve discovered that McDonald’s restaurants are about as concerned about tourists camping in their parking lots as they are about the temperature of the fries they throw over the counter. Just say: not. That’s why we’re staying with Uncle Ronald for the last few days. After three days in Sydney, the biggest city of Australia, we drive a bit to the most beautiful nature in the vicinity: the Blue Mountains National Park. We drive to this piece of unspoilt nature and drop the car near the so-called Echo Point. The view here is somewhat reminiscent of the Grand Canyon. We have to push aside some selfie stick waving Asian tourists with I-love-Australia caps, but when we peek over the edge it is truly amazing.
The only drawback is: a huge spoiler alert. Even before we start our walk, we have already seen the most beautiful things. On the other hand, a little further away we do have more than ten square centimeters of space for ourselves. That is worth something, people! Also very spectacular is the descent over one of the steepest stairs I have ever seen. And after that we take a walk through the deepest point of the gorge. We see a dense jungle with gigantic trees, lianas, tropical flowers, waterfalls and lots of birds. It probably comes as a surprise, but the climb back up was the least pleasant part of the walk. Our steel calves have now changed into calves of 80-carat platinum, yes.
A ‘dead normal’ night trip to heavenly Port Stephens
In the previous blog I already talked about the problem with driving a car and kangaroos, read: suicide bombers with a cuddly fur around them. They eat the grass along the road and jump out of nowhere, where they discover that those beautiful lights in the distance hit very hard up close. Nowadays we always try to drive before it gets dark, but the further north we go, the earlier that is: currently around half past six. The best way we have found is to use high beams and then occasionally honk the horn in the densely vegetated areas.
What we don’t understand at all is that most cars here drive so fast at night. Have they lost it or do they simply really hate kangaroos? Disappointed that their favorite program Skipper has been taken off the air? Now I have to say that many cars have such a large ‘grill’ on their bumper, with which you can easily sweep away kangaroos. I wonder if they are also sold like this in stores, like: ‘look sir, this car is equipped with the Kangaroo Destroyer 3000, for just a little extra punch. You’ll hardly know the difference between a shit fly and a kangaroo!’
Port Stephens is often skipped, but so worth it!
Port Stephens is a small town that we had actually not heard of before. We see photos that are promising, with views over a beautiful natural harbor. Because we are driving past it anyway, we decide to pay a visit. We take a walk to the Tomaree Heads Summit which starts on a fantastic snow-white beach. Then every wildest expectation is exceeded when we stop every five meters and marvel at the bizarre view with our mouths open.
From the top of the mountain we see the mountainous peninsula, with the most beautiful bounty beaches on both sides, surrounded by ten different colors of water. If I were to print out three random photos from today, I could immediately replace the blue ink, the sea is so incredibly beautiful here.
Another natural phenomenon of Port Stephens is located a little further away, namely the sand dunes of Worimi. Right next to the sea lies a Sahara-like landscape. Where the beach ends, the sea begins. When we arrive there, a whole caravan of camels even passes by to complete the picture. And so, very unexpectedly, Port Stephens is on my list of Australian favorites.
A thousand flying foxes and a visit to the world’s only koala hospital
In the next town on our route along the east coast we find a lot of history. Port Macquarie, also called simply Port by the locals, was the third city founded by the English on this continent. The reason was rather dubious, as space was needed to move prisoners from Sydney and put them to work. So the city was actually built entirely by the prisoners.
Nowadays, Port Macquarie relies mainly on tourism and its most special attraction is the unique koala hospital, where injured koalas from all over the country are treated so that they can be released back into the wild. We have a great experience with only one major defect: unfortunately you are not allowed to take one home with you at the end. We walk past the various enclosures, read the stories behind the individual animals and in the meantime come up with a clever plan to get one of them. to smuggle these live stuffed animals home. Our brand new nephew recently came into the world and what an ideal gift it would be, right? Fuck those furbies, this one doesn’t need batteries!
Creepy mini-draculas
Port Macquarie has a number of nature parks that we take a look at, starting with Cooloonburg Creek. Without any preliminary research, our jaws drop open in surprise again. We follow a screeching sound to see what the heck is going on in this forest and arrive at a group of a thousand bats, but also very large ones. Here they are called ‘flying foxes’ and in the Netherlands apparently flying dogs. We stand among the mangroves on a few wooden planks and see a tangle of fighting mini-Draculas going wild above our heads: bizarre!
We end this city full of special places with a walk through the Sea Acres Rainforest Center. There are two stories that will go around as to why we only walked through this park for about fifteen minutes. Suus will say that it started to rain and that we therefore preferred to continue to the next town. I’ll probably tell you my side of the story.
The Blue Tongue Lizard a.k.a. Croco-Snake
After a few hundred meters of walking, along a road that, I admit, was already quite littered with large spiders and insects, we see something slipping through the bushes. Suus freezes and shouts so loudly, ‘Wout, what is that!?’ that unfortunately I was not able to take a picture of the cute animal that briefly poked its head around the corner. Afterwards we appear to have seen a ‘Blue Tongue Lizard’ and they just happen to have a head that resembles that of a snake. Suus herself describes it as a snake-crocodile mutation that still haunts her nightmares at night. Anyway, those few drops of rain were not the reason for our short but intense walk. It was the awkward encounter between Suus and Croco-Snake!
We do a hippie dance at the sunset in Byron Bay
A top attraction that has been on our agenda since the beginning is the seaside resort of Byron Bay and that is where we have now arrived. Not only are the beaches here, like many other places, pristine and straight out of a tropical travel brochure; there is also a unique atmosphere.
Byron Bay is the hippie city of Australia. How can I best describe that? Let’s say that in the space of about ten minutes I observed these three phenomena: a surfer dude who shoots by on a skateboard as stoned as a shrimp with a tray full of drinks in his hand, more often than not the word ‘bio’ on the facades than in an average biology book and a dancing girl of about twenty with about five times as much armpit hair as me. Furthermore, it is a very nice town. The service we receive at the Visitor Center is also typical for Byron Bay. We ask what there is to do and a hippie behind a desk looks up from his cup of tea, with the wise words: ‘There isn’t much man, just go out and enjoy’. Okay!
Walking the coast to cape Byron
We hop along the different beaches and take a walk to Cape Byron where we actually spot a whole group of dolphins and a green sea turtle. The amount of animals you encounter along the way in Australia: that is probably the most bizarre thing about our entire road trip.
As the sun sets on Byron Bay, a crowd of people forms on the beach. Did I say dancing? Let’s just say what I saw is probably how Martians dance… when they walk on Venus without oxygen, something like that. Grandmothers, who I estimate to be at least ninety, participate just as happily. What a spectacle. And no one shaves a single hair. We almost trip over all those armpit hairs, but otherwise we enjoy a very special evening. We look at the stars again and wonder what Australia will bring us. What a trip! Continue reading about Goldcoast, Brisbane and the bizarre Fraser Island!
Subscribe and follow us
We hope you enjoyed reading about the roadtrip from Sydney to Byron Bay, Australia. Would you like to help keep my travel show on the road and follow all destinations closely? Subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Instagram!
