So Jamie and I departed our farm stay on Sunday and hit the road towards Sydney. Our first leg of the trip would take us to Arlie Beach. It took about 9 hours to reach the town and I was glad we left on Sunday. There was a lot of road construction on our way up to this area and since it was Sunday there wasn’t many people working. On one construction site I saw some workers. Everything shuts down in the small towns on Sundays and there aren’t many cars out. Even most of the supermarkets are closed on Sundays, although more are closed in the smaller towns. The drive was pleasant and had nice views of hills and farms.
I booked a tent site at Magnums this time around, which only cost $18/night for the two of us. Our tent site is setup right next to the bar and the main street so it was nice and easy to get to places and we had music till midnight. They only have 4 tent sites and about 6 caravan park sites. We stayed at the Magnums campsite for 2 nights.
On Tuesday we left for Seventeen Seventy. I hadn’t had much of chance to look around the area last time we were there and it was a good stopping point between Arlie Beach and Surfers Paradise. It took about 11 hours to get there. This included 2 hours of stopped traffic due to a crashed tractor-trailer carrying steal on the highway.
We had heard about a $5 camping spot in Angus Waters which is the town bordering Seventeen Seventy. Since we got to the area late we didn’t find the campground that night; we ended up camping on the side of the bay at Seventeen Seventy since we saw another tent up. We got woken up in the morning by the ranger telling us we couldn’t camp there. He was very nice and gave us directions to the $5 camping spot, which was called Workman’s and was in Agnus Waters. It was on a bluff surrounded by trees with a walking trail of about 3 minutes to the beach. It also had free gas barbecues, toilets, and drinking water. There was also a concrete skatepark right across the street.
Jamie and I ended up spending 3 nights at the campground. I spent my days at the beach fishing, surfing, skimboarding, and reading. You do not need a permit to fish in the state of Queensland but you do in the state of New South Whales. We are still in Queensland. I would get a skate in during the morning before it would get too hot. The skatepark was pretty new and worked well. There was never anyone else there either. Both towns, Seventeen Seventy and Agnus Waters were very quiet during our stay. There weren’t many people around anywhere, the beaches were pretty empty and the campground only had maybe 10 groups of people staying there. There are a few hostels, bars, and restaurants in Agnus Waters. Seventeen Seventy only had one nice restaurant near the water and a few tourist shops. The town runs along the bay and Agnus Waters runs along the ocean. Agnus Waters is having apartment complexes and homes being built there along the ocean but much of it remains undeveloped. Seventeen Seventy runs a lot of sailboats to the Great Barrier Reef.
One day we did a walking trail at the tip of Seventeen Seventy where there were amazing views. We also did a walk down to a beach near the south end of Agnus Waters. There is a long stretch of beaches that you need to hike to see there. I also heard there is a 2.5 hour walk further to the south around the point of Agnus Waters, we didn’t get a chance to do that one.
After 3 days at Workman’s Campground we decided it was time to make it further south again. If there was more swell in the ocean I could have stayed much longer. Workman’s has a right hand point break that was small when we were there. Apparently it gets big on the cyclones between November and June.
So we pushed back on the road early Saturday morning. Another secret we learned was if you leave before the rangers come in the morning (which was around 7am) you do not have to pay to stay. A lot of people would leave before the rangers got there. We drove through some major cities- Bundaberg, Maryborough, and Gympie and then headed towards Noosa Heads to take the coast road along the Sunshine Coast. It was a beautiful area that I didn’t have a chance to see on my way up. The road overlooked the ocean. Along the ocean were dunes with forests. The sand was real clean and white. We stopped at Coolum Beach, which was a great beach town. There was a nice skatepark on the beach. My surf guide had told me this was one of the good beach breaks. The waves were pretty blown out by the time I got there and since it was low tide the waves were breaking close to the beach. The water was warm and the weather was great. I wore a full wetsuit but felt very warm in it. There were a few nice shops and restaurants along the beach. There were some nice homes built along the hillsides. It had the feel of Main Street in Laguna Beach. There was a camping park along the beach downtown as well. It cost $27 for tent camping. I would have liked to stay there that night but I wanted to get to Surfers Paradise by the days end.
We spent the night in Surfers Paradise in the car to save money, as it’s expensive down this way. The following day we walked around the south part of the city Miami. There was a great Globe skateshop with a halfpipe in the back and a setup for skateboarding in the front. It was a very cool idea as the setup in the front was all concrete and steel and was right in the walkway to the shop. We also went to a cool music shop, they sold drums, many things to juggle, and other fun toys; and the shop guy offered everything to play with.
We then headed to Byron Bay. We stayed at the Byron Bay Tourist Park, a caravan park outside the town by about 2 km’s but offered a great campsite. There was plenty of grass area around a few lakes. It was quite and very nice. It was $10 each which is good for Byron. I got a few surfs at Wategos Beach. The first time I surfed there a bunch of people were on the beach as someone spotted a bull shark in the water, the guy who saw it said it was as big as his 9 foot surfboard. After watching from an above area a guy didn’t see the shark anymore and since I was with 3 others from the campground we pushed forward in the water. It was scary at first, I attempted to lie on my board and keep my legs out of the water. None of us saw the shark. The day before, at a spot around the headland called Tallows, a guy got knocked off his board and a shark bit off his leash and a fin. Jeeze, I still can’t get over this shark thing. Here’s the article on that, http://www.fearbeneath.com/2008/09/surfer-barely-avoids-shark-attack-at-byron-bay/
We stayed in Byron for 3 nights and enjoyed my time there. I did a snorkel one day at the main beach near the shipwreck. The water was murky but I did manage to see some fish that were about a foot long.
After our stay we headed south to Southwest Rocks. We got in around 9pm to the town and it was almost completely shut down. There was a nice campground right on the beach and there were no gates. Since reception was closed we just threw our tent up overlooking a great beach. That night there was big storm; it rained most of the night and winds blew our top cover off our tent. When I got up I had beach views and saw half my tent next to where I was sleeping. We left the following morning before the rangers came by. The beaches were very nice in this town although the weather was bad. The surf was blown out so I decided to head further for surf.
That morning we were on our last leg, finally I would make it back to Sydney where I started the road trip about 2 months ago. Just south of Southwest Rocks we found a great national park with camping. It had kangaroos hopping around all over; this was the first time I saw kangaroos at a national park campground and the first time I saw them next to the beach. It was so very cool. It was called Arakon State Conservation Area. There were plenty of campsites open and fire pits all over. The park had a lot of exposed granite cliffs suitable for rock climbing as well. There was a surfing beach to the north but on the southern end it looked like really strong rip currents.
We finished our drive in Sydney and I dropped Jamie off at his previous long-term hostel in Glebe, a western suburb of Sydney.
I then headed to meet my friend Rabbs that I went to Indonesia with. Rabbs lives with his girlfriend and her parents in the western suburb of Sydney called Balmain. He had quit his job a few weeks back and was keen to go to Melbourne. I decided it would be a great opportunity to go down there. We would just go for a week since he had to be back in Sydney. So that evening I stayed at his girlfriend Milli’s place. It was an amazing 3-level house overlooking Sydney Harbor. Milli’s parents cooked us a delicious dinner and she cooked a great desert. It was the first night in a while where I got a comfortable bed all to myself. Milli and her parents were exceptionally hospitable offering things for breakfast and making lunch the following day. Milli even made desert for breakfast. I packed up Rabb’s car and we were ready to mission it to Melbourne! Bell’s Beach here we come…
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