Road Trip from Sydney to Cairns - Week 1

Well I left on my road trip in Sydney to Cairns on Sunday July 6, 2008 at noon. I have about 23 days for the trip. I am traveling with 2 guys I met on Gumtree.com, which is similar to Craigslist.org in the states. Ricky is from New Zealand and Andrea is from Italy, they are both really great and we have been getting along well.
It is a real good opportunity to learn about there cultures and have some company at the same time. I had put up an ad to have travel partners up the coast and surf and explore the whole way up, I met with them the day before and it seemed like it would work. We could split fuel and food costs and have people to hang out with. Ricky surfs and Andrea would like to learn. I had them take the ferry from Sydney to meet me in Manly.


Our first stop would be Treachery Campground (near Seal Rocks) in Myall Lakes National Park. We would pass through New Castle first, which was a small little city along the coast. The city was old and the streets weren’t crowded. We got up to Treachery after dark and checked in to the campground, it cost $13 each.


We set up our tent right near a sand dune that was the closest spot to access the beach. We ate some cereal for dinner and set up our 4-person dome tent that my friend John’s sister had lent me. John also lent me his eski (cooler) and air mattress. Brogan had lent me his surf racks. Aussie’s are always going out of their way to be friendly. Off the subject, but just to show how nice Australians are, we were driving through a random town, had made a wrong turn and pulled over. A lady had pulled over behind us, so we thought we were getting pulled over, it turned out she saw us turning our heads all over like we were lost and stopped to give us directions.
So we made a fire at the camp and hung out for a bit. Ricky has been camping for a while; he has worked at camps for kids. He also worked a lot at extreme sporting activity companies, like white water rafting, rock climbing and canyoning companies. He was also telling me about his hunting experiences, he used to get paid to hunt all kinds of animals, especially possums. He would shoot them for there fur for his job. New Zealand seems to allow hunting of many animals. He has camped out along rivers and in the middle of the north island for months in New Zealand. New Zealand is very old fashioned, lots of hunting, not many people (about 4 million), but the majority live on the North Island (3 million), and out of all of those people they mostly live in Auckland (about 2 million). I think there is 3 times as many sheep as people. Ricky has just gotten to Australia and is 31. Andrea is from Trieste, Italy; he is half Croatian and half Italian. His job in Italy was to fix a special type of hospital equipment. He has been traveling around Australia for over 10 months and is my age: 27.
The following day we woke up at 7am to get in the water early, the waves were packing 6-foot faces but were unpredictable with where they would break and a little fat which made it hard to get rides. Ricky and I surfed it for a bit, then we made some breakfast, which consisted of peanut butter, jelly, and nutmella (hazelnut-chocolate spread) on bread. We didn’t see any stores to get food on our way to the campground so our food supplies were limited. I took my skimboard down the dunes, there was a jump halfway down. Then Ricky called me up the dunes as a few whales were passing in the ocean, you could see their backs and the water blowing out their blowholes.
Then we adventured to the views of the lighthouse at Seal Rocks. The campground was very relaxing, with Dingo’s walking around everywhere. Dingo’s are stray dogs, but here they were somewhat friendly and playful. They would come up to you about 10-20 feet away and then back away, they would sniff around other peoples sites that weren’t at there tents. They could be dangerous though, especially to babies and younger children. There were also wild turkeys roaming around in the morning, pretty much I have seen wild turkeys everywhere, at some main beaches and at all the campgrounds. Ricky saw a sea turtle while we were surfing that morning. In the morning birds were chirping starting at sunrise, they are soooo loud in the morning, exactly the same as the rainforest noises on the alarm clocks they sell, so obnoxious! Earplugs are a must when camping in the national forests and rain forests in Australia.
In the afternoon we checked out a couple of surf spots north of Seal Rocks, which included Sand Bar, Bluey’s Beach, and Boomerangs. Sand Bar and Bluey’s were accessible by dirt roads, Boomerangs had a paved road leading to it. Australia is filled with dirt roads to uncharted surf breaks, it’s totally a search and discover mission whenever you adventure down some of the unmapped roads. 4-wheel drive is the real way to explore, as you can drive on most of the beaches, and some dirt roads have potholes that can’t be driven over by shallow wheel based cars. When we checked out Sand Bar a guy said a tiger shark hangs out in the area, as there is a river that connects to the south part of the beach. Last year the shark took a bite out a guy’s board; needless to say we surfed at Bluey’s.




Nobody was out there and Ricky and I got some great waves, 6-8 foot faces and both lefts and rights. After I rode one wave I turned around to paddle back out and watched as Ricky took off on a wave and saw several dolphins going through the waves, I even saw them jump out of the water, as Ricky was on the wave, just amazing.
Later that day we picked up food supplies and headed to Point Plummer, which is in another national park. Most national parks have camping, and sometimes it is free if no one checks so that was our plan to get free tent camping. Treachery was a private campground, although it was within the national park. Andrea plugged the address in his gps and it led us to a ferry, ha, it ended up being a ferry across a small body of water and the ferry was pulled by steel suspension cables, looked to be all electric, and it only cost $2.80 to take the car on. When we got over we didn’t really know which way to go, guys had said you needed 4-wheel drive, so we followed the gps. We took some dirt roads and ended up north of Point Plummer in Crescent Head (known as surf city), which I later found out was the way to go, you can get to Point Plummer quicker from the ferry if you have 4-wheel drive, if not you have to do what we did and drive northwest and cut back southeast. We saw a bunch of kangaroos on the dirt road that night anyway so that was fun. That day we saw so much wild life!
Crescent Head is a great surf break but it was dark and we had a mission to get to Point Plummer. So we headed back south, we found a little campsite north of Point Plummer with nobody around, we setup camp and went to bed early. In the morning we checked Point Plummer out, it was a national park that charged to camp. It was setup right on the point break, a perfect right hander that was a good long boarder wave or beginner wave that went for a long time. It was very small though so we drove south more and checked a few spots out. We came to Queens Head and climbed up on the hill and saw peaks all down the line to the south, more size and cleaner than the other spots as it was facing south swell and the others were blocking the south swell. Ricky and I got some great waves all to ourselves. There was a bunch of people south of us but the peak we surfed had nobody on it. We surfed for hours than made a lunch at the car park. We then headed north back to Crescent Head to check it out during the daylight. The wave was also a long right-hander and easy to ride, but wasn’t getting much swell at the time. The town was very small, with just a few shops and Camper Park on the beach. There was also a small skate park in front of the beach. All the cities seem to have skate parks, there most of them are free too. The ramps are either steel or made from concrete as they are outside. There seem to be no restrictions on pads or helmets. Some parks may make you wear a helmet, although I haven’t seen one. We then headed north to our next destination, which was dependent on wave quality. We drove through Hat Head, which I was told had many sand dunes and was a great campground. The waves weren’t very good though and we decided we had to make up some ground in the car. We also checked out Scott’s Head, again the waves weren’t very good, we drove through Macksville to get petrol (gas). The town was very nice with several shops but off the coast a bit.
Our next spot we checked out was Nambucca Heads. This was a big surf town with beautiful homes, a nice town, and great views. The beach was a little difficult to get to though; when we got to a beach north of the headland the waves were crap. As I drove through the backstreets I made a wrong turn and came across a spectacular view of the waterway at the edge of the ocean, probably a lagoon.


The sun was setting and the sky had so many different colors, there looked to be a nice break south of the main headland but we had no idea how to get down there. The sun was a determining factor, as it has been on the trip so far as it sets at 5pm. I was told Sawtell was a great campground and surf spot, we scoped it out and it was $25 for the night, so no free camping. It was a major camp ground/caravan park. We decided to go north another few kilometers to Coffs Harbor, since they had a sister campground there and it is a bigger city. Since we were paying we figured we would see more at Coffs. There sister campground ended up being closed so we found another one that was nice on the Pacific Highway set back a few kms from the beach but close to town, it had dutch buildings/stores, tent sites open, washers and driers, showers, and a nice communal kitchen and bbq, it cost $25 for all of us. It was nice to have some amenities for the first time. We set up our tent and started making dinner. We bbq’d kangaroo and made pasta. The kangaroo was really tasty, a tender steak meat. Kangaroos are hunted in Australia as they become overpopulated, often running in front of cars, similar to deer in the woods areas in the states. It is actually very cheap as well at the supermarkets, probably the cheapest besides that Devon crap. I think most people in the states think Kangaroos are endangered.
The next day, Wednesday, we walked around Coffs Harbor town and checked out the harbor area. There was a wave breaking right off the north part of the jetty wall and nobody was out.
The wave was small but you can’t say no to a wave with some shape and all to yourself. Andrea walked north of the jetty up a big hill that has great views of the area. We ate lunch at the picnic area we parked at and headed north. We passed a big banana, which symbolizes the city as it is heavy into banana farming. Our next stop I was planning on going was Yamba Beach, I got told from several people to check it out. But since it was 3pm and we were getting thirsty for another wave we decided to pull off at a dirt road towards Yura Yoir National Park. The road to the beach was a 15 km dirt and cobble road with deep potholes, muddy roads; basically it was accessible for 4-wheel drive vehicles. There were plenty of roads off the beaten track, we ventured down one but turned to the main one because the road got so bad. About an hour and half of driving and bottoming out we finally came to a campsite close to the beach. It was 430 pm and Ricky and I jumped out of the car and ran down a path with our boards to the beach, the beach was called Pebbly Beach and Station Creek Beach. It was a good kilometer plus to the beach but a really nice path. We got there and the waves looked fun, nobody out, 3-6 foot faces, and relatively warm water. It was great again to get a spot all to ourselves.

After the surf we decided to stay the night, there were plenty of open sites, fire pits, and no one to pay, although the next day the park ranger collected $20 (total) from us. If you leave early enough you can get away from paying. That night we made pasta for dinner and smores for desert. Ricky and Andrea had never heard of smores and Andrea had never eaten a marshmallow! Ricky loved the smores. I had to compensate for the graham crackers though as they don’t seem to sell them in Australia, I used desert biscuits and cookies instead. Thursday we woke up at sunrise and the cold air (maybe about 50 F). And our air mattress popped the 2nd night so we just had a tent, sleeping bags, a deflated air mattress and one blanket. We keep saying its gonna get warmer at night as we head up north but it really hasn’t warmed up much at night. We headed down to the beach, we hit the water and it felt great, a lot warmer than the air. I estimated about 67 F for the water. The wind was whipping off shore, blowing spary off the top of the waves maybe 30 feet behind the wave, which is great for surfing. The waves were fast, fun, and perfect size pushing in 3-4 foot waves with an occasional 5 footer; so that means about 6-10 foot faces. Again nobody was out, we were out in the middle of the nowhere. We did see some people at the campground, maybe 4 families.
So after the surf we made breakfast and headed back down the dirt/cobble road to the Pacific Highway. We headed up north through Grafton to Yamba. We stopped in Grafton at Woolworths for food and ice. We also filled up for our 3rd time with petrol. It’s been costing about $80 to fill up the Camry. Petrol here is way more expensive than the states, about $1.60-1.70 per liter. This translates to about $6-$6.50 a gallon. It’s a bit cheaper up north, about $5.50-$5.75 a gallon. I’m glad I’m traveling with 2 people to help split costs! We got to Yamba at about 3pm and the waves were cracking, my surf guide had said it was a punchy shore break. It had a lot of juice, fast barreling waves that were easy to take off on and would punish you for trying to get a barrel. But the hold down wasn’t bad; it was just the constant waves crashing at the end of the ride. It was crowded but there seemed to be waves for everyone. The wave broke south of a rock wall and we stayed mainly on the south part of the pack of people. Dolphins had came right into the lineup and were riding waves just a few feet from me, they were then further out in the sea for maybe an hours time during our surf, just so peaceful; they were jumping out of the water and traveling in a pack of maybe 10 dolphins.
After dark we headed to Byron Bay, we were staying at possibly the best hostel in Australia, it was called the Arts Factory and everyone I talked to told me to stay here. The place was opened in 1898 as a Piggery and turned into a hippie palace in the 70’s. The place has everything, it’s built on 5 acres of land and provides hostels around a swimming pool, a big campground for tent sites, several cabins including a bus, a teepee, several normal cabins, kitchens, a main lobby with arcade games, pool tables, and couches. The cabins are built around a pond and the surroundings of the campground are natural forests. They offer a shuttle to town every half hour and every 10 minutes after 10pm, but the walk is only 10 minutes. There were people from all over the world staying there, people had been staying there for months, we only stayed 5 days and it wasn’t nearly enough. I can see how people can get sucked into the place for a while, they even let you work a few hours a week cleaning or working reception to stay for free. Natural wild life in the area consisted of the classic wild turkey’s, guanos which are like iguanas, basically big lizards; also the birds would be chirping all day and the loudest at 630 am. The place also had a cinema and a spa where you could get massages. The cinema was really neat, it had projection movie screen and the seating was lounge couches so you could lie down. It cost $12 a night to camp here each; about $20 for the hostel rooms, and the prices went down the longer you stayed. We got in on Thursday night, set up camp, and hung around the campground.
The next day we went to the town to walk around. It is a somewhat small town and easy to get around. There are lots of tourist shops, travel agency’s, surf shops, bars and restaurants. The main beach is right in town, about 2 miles south is the lighthouse which is on a headland that is the most easterly point in Australia. South of that headland is a beach called Tallow’s and that’s where we went Friday afternoon to surf. Conditions weren’t too good, as a side wind was chopping up the waves. It was nice opportunity to relax and read on the beach. The following day, Saturday we parked on the north side of the headland and took some hiking trails along the coastal rainforest, along the ocean to the lighthouse. At our parking area there was a long breaking right hander wave, great for longboarders, as we walked up the hills we came down to another beach called Wategos Beach which was an even longer breaking righthander similar to the other beach.

The water was packed with longboarders getting over 30 second rides. We found another trail that lead up to the lighthouse from this beach; there were beautiful views of Byron Bay beaches from here. Most of the coastal areas in Byron Bay are national forests and rain forests still; they did a good job protecting these areas from development. Once we got to the lighthouse we saw whales and dolphins, there pretty standard sightings by now though. Later that day I went over to the main beach with Andrea and paddled around, I had heard there was a surf spot called shipwrecks, so I searched the north side of the main beach and saw the piece of a mast sticking out from the water and saw the waves breaking right on the south part of the mast. There wasn’t much swell and the wave was crowded as there were only 2 peaks, I got a few waves and just enjoyed the views.
On Sunday we took a drive to Nimbon, the hippie capital of Australia; although Byron Bay is real hippie. Nimbon was a small town about 1.5 hours east (inland) from Byron Bay. I’m not too into Nimbon but it’s something everybody has to experience that goes to Byron, and both Andrea and Ricky wanted to go. They have lots of shops selling organic herbs, pills, teas, clothing, jewelry, and touristy hippie gear. Also, everyone sells pot and pot food in the streets; it can get really obnoxious after a while. The best part of Nimbon though is the rainforests and waterfalls located about 30 minutes from the town. We went to Protestors Falls which had 30 meter waterfall. We climbed behind it and just admired the surroundings. We took a friends car to the waterfalls, the car was just like Mr. Beans.

My car was leaking oil bad, so I had to drop it off to get it looked at, it just needed a new oil filter so luckily it was an easy fix. On the way back to Byron Bay we hit an overflowing creek where water was well above our ankles, we were able to clear it but looked a little menacing. We also almost smacked a stray cow in the road.
On Monday I woke up early to see the sunrise at the lighthouse, it was real pretty but a little overcast. Ricky and I took a ride that afternoon to the southern part of Byron Bay, about 20 minutes, to Broken Head, another perfect right hand point break. The conditions weren’t great but I got some fun waves, I could see how it could break for hundreds of yards. As you can see by now Byron Bay is probably one of the best places to live in Australia for a surfer.
Unfortunately the following day, Tuesday, was checkout day for Byron Bay. We packed up camp and got on the road again. The day before Ricky, Andrea, and I booked a package to do some touristy things. We saw a great package that included a 3-day, 2-night trip to Frasier Island with a 4-wheel drive truck and a 2 night sailing trip through the Whitsunday’s within the Great Barrier Reef with food included. Our package also included stays on Rainbow Beach, Surfers Paradise, Brisbane, Noosa Heads, 1770 (where Captain Cook first got into Aussie in 1770), Arlie Beach, and Cairns. For this package including 14 days of accommodation came to $500 each, which is close to what the costs of just the hostels would be. I am looking forward to the next 2 weeks!
I went to Frasier Island last time I was here just for the day and loved it; it’s an island with no development, just all beach sand. The forest grows out of the beach sand, and there are lots of lakes, creeks, and a 75-mile stretch of beach that you can drive on and also is a landing strip for planes. The ocean is shark infested so no one surfs there. I didn’t have a chance last time to go to the barrier reef and have been looking forward to going back for a while. I’ll search for Little Nemo.