riverECHO

622 kilometers around Australia.

We departed the Sydney area on Saturday afternoon to head to the still large, but more van friendly, town of Gosford. Slim was in desperate need of an oil change and since the local mechanics couldn’t take a look at him until Tuesday we decided to make camp for a couple of days in an area called The Entrance. We had a waterfront site where we were literally three steps away from a fast flowing lake inlet. An elderly neighbor of ours named Doug, who was parked in a site behind us, would wander over a few times a day to test his luck with the fish. But he always left with the shrimp still on the hook and when we would ask him “Any luck?” he would reply “All bad.” Doug became a good friend in camp and helped us add a number of places to see to our Australia list. We were excited to have a day to just chill at camp and read about our upcoming travels but eventually ventured out to the nearby town of Long Jetty where we watched a daily feeding of the local pelican population. These birds were huge and could easily have fit my entire arm in their bill. I’m not sure the little fish nibbles that were being tossed at them really filled them up.

Slim’s appointment turned into more of a lesson on old car maintenance. They fixed him up for the time being but he is still in need of a few repairs, including a new carburetor. We knew we would have a lot to deal with because he was so inexpensive but so far he has treated us well, despite a minor cough-gurgle-rev-lurch whenever we turn him off. At least people are always alerted when we arrive. His horn is also really easy to bump so we are constantly sending out a friendly hello to neighbors and fellow highway drivers.

We spent the afternoon running around trying to wrap up a few errands before pointing Slim north to inch our way up the coast. BJ’s favorite moment along the drive was when I pointed out a yellow highway marker that had some sort of strange looking animal on it and said “I’m not exactly sure what that’s supposed to be.” Let’s just say we are looking forward to an array of wildlife sightings in Australia. After a long bumpy ride down a dirt road, we pulled into a powered campsite in Myall Lakes National Park just after dark. We had been reading up about the many things to do in the area and were looking forward to setting up camp for a few days. But after we moved in to our site and turned on our computers, we realized we couldn’t get an internet signal. We knew it was too good to be true and I think we are coming to terms with what “covering 99% of Australia’s population” actually means. So we quickly changed plans, decided to get some sleep and drove out of camp around 5am this morning in search of the Australian internet. We continued up the coast to the town of Port Macquarie where we have settled nicely into a well shaded campsite just a short walk from the beach. We are surrounded by birds at our camp . . . purple, green and red parrots, another bird that we can’t see but sounds like a monkey, and a fat little owl that just walked by our feet looking for food. Port Macquarie doesn’t seem to have too much going on in terms of the town but it has a beautiful coastline, pristine beaches and waves that I am sure the local surfers enjoy.