Here, There, and Everywhere!: Road Trippin AUS

I have always loved road trips (although I am sure my mom would disagree). So I guess I will be more specific: I love all the road trips that are in my cognizant memory. My friend Liz and I (from Berkeley) made road tripping from LA to Berkeley an amazing and exciting 7 hour experience. We would often sing songs at the top of our lungs, have meaningful conversations and eat lots of bad foods. After all, that is what road trips are all about! Right?

Last weekend, by the amazing and sort of ridiculous tradition of Australians’ celebrating the Queen of England’s birthday, Todd had a four-day weekend. We tossed around lots of ideas but finally settled on a four day road trip with no real destination or plans; we just headed south. Ahhh yes, I forgot to mention this and I know Todd was extremely excited about this part of the weekend and would be devastated if I left it out: Friday night we went rock climbing. Yes on real rocks, yes with all the proper safety equipment and yes it was hard. It wasn’t so much the height that really got to me but the fact that hauling my 60 kilo frame up a wall is hard on my arms and legs and reaching the top once was quite enough. Of course I forgot to look out once I reached the top which is really a shame because we were at Kangaroo Point and the Brisbane river and city lights were glistening behind me. Oh well, next time! By the way, Todd was scared too ;-P

Back to the drawing board, Saturday morning Todd and I intended to leave around 12 but after heaps of errands and chores around the house we finally hit the road at 5… when it was already dark… We both joked about how we should just sleep at his place that night and leave instead the next morning but trucked on to Ballina, a beachside town near Byron Bay (south of where I live, known as one of the most famous beaches in Australia, kinda reminds me of Santa Cruz for all you Americans…). We shelled out and paid for a patch of grass in a caravan park for the night and grilled hamburgers topped with hummus, lettuce, beets, tomato etc. The next day we decided that paying for grass in the middle of a town is very silly and downloaded a very helpful iphone app on Todd’s phone which showed us National Park campsites ($10 a person at most). We followed this for the next two nights and stayed in two beautiful places. Sunday morning we drove inland towards Wollomombi waterfall, the highest waterfall in Australia. We stayed Sunday night right near the falls and at a freezing 1,400 meters above sea level that night. We were not prepared for the cold or the rain that kept us company all weekend but we managed fine with wood fires and bedtimes of 7:30, which kept us warm in the tent :)

The next morning we ingeniously packed up the inside of the tent with the fly still standing so that our tent would still be dry for the next night (my brilliant idea ;)) and then headed to the falls. After admiring them for 5 min or so we decided that it was way too cold, and let’s be honest: we were way too lazy, to walk down closer to the falls and we headed to Coffs Harbor. This is where Guy (my house mate) is from and the location of the Big Banana (Australian businesses have a fetish for large fiberglass figures, but heck they are good marketing!). After walking up mutton bird island (where they go to lay eggs) we headed out of Coffs and towards home. We stayed our last night at Station Creek which was a park that we had completely to ourselves. We made another big “boom” fire (as Roman says) and Todd introduced me to another Australian tradition: Jaffles. You take two pieces of bread, butter them and put them butter side down on the jaffle iron (kinda like a waffle iron). They you place cheese and ham or egg on the bread and put it straight in the fire. It was amazing. Gooey cheese and toasted, slightly burnt bread, perfect camping food! (although smores are still better ;) )

Todd and I wandered through some small towns and shops on the way back North and observed the road trippin rules: singing, bad food, and meaningful conversations. Amazingly, he isn’t tired of me yet! Ha ha :) It was an incredibly perfect weekend and even the rain couldn’t dampen our spirits!

More pieces through pictures:

We stopped at this "scottish" town- basically a normal small town with scottish themed telephone poles and banners up and down the main street. Cute idea! Heck, it encouraged us to stop!