After a few days of Sydney and getting rid of most of the jet lag, it was time for the big adventure; Roadtripping through Australia. Driving with a motorhome through Australia is the dream. And yes it is highly romanticized. It is expensive and can be a huge pain in the rear. But we just had to do it. All we knew was the date on which we needed to return our motorhome in Cairns. That gave us more or less 3 weeks to drive from Sydney to Cairns. On forehand we thought we had plenty of time. Newsflash. Australia is quite big. More like HUGE. So choices needed to be made. I am sure we could do the route again and stop at completely different places and still have an amazing time, but this is wat we did in week 1.
Sydney – Lithgow
We decided to start with the Blue Mountains and drive through the national park. A lot of people skip this, but a lot of locals were very enthusiastic about it and it is part of Unesco world heritage. We didn’t want to drive major distances every day and we liked going with something that is not in every tourist book. It was really back to nature, impressive nature that is, and we liked it for our first stop.
Lithgow – Pokolbin
The second day we drove to Pokolbin in Hunter Valley. Hunter Valley is famous for being a wine district. We drove to 2 vineyards and did some wine tasting and stocked our camper with enough wines for the rest of our trip. We can really recommend the sparkling Shiraz from Hungerford Hill Wines. SO. GOOD. π
Pokolbin – Hat Head
Hat Head was a tip from a girl we talked with in a store at Manly beach in Sydney. She talked about Hat Head national park and we were sold. It was a bit of a wild card because we were not sure what to expect and the camping ground is a free one (you only pay a small fee for the park) so there was no guarantee for a spot. In name of adventure we decided to give it a shot and we were not disappointed. A gorgeous beach just to ourselves and kangaroos hopping around our motorhome. Happy campers!
Hat Head – Byron Bay
After Hat Head we drove to Byron Bay and stayed there for 2 nights. Byron Bay is a well known hippie kind of town. There nose-pearcings are always in trend and a small spiritual tattoo on your wrist all of the sudden seems like a perfect idea. Kelvin even had his first acai bowl there. Theres a moment. Prepare for lots and lots of backpackers. It even made us feel a tad old. π But still we really like it. It is a place you can easily spent more days going to the beach and having good food. We had dinner at the Balcony one night. Tapas portions are huge there and really tasty. Definitely a good tip.
Byron Bay – Lake Moogerah
When Kelvin and I were browsing the internet to look for places to visit in Australia, we both came back with a picture of Lake Moogerah. We thought it would be a nice change of scenery from all the beaches we were going to see, so it stayed on the list. The drive there was really pretty and it was a nice quiet spot at this beautiful lake. Some locals had there boat down there and spended the day on the water. I do feel like thats the way to go over there, because jumping in from the side was scary. You will feel a lot of stuff at your feet (plants?) and than you realize you are in Australia. Better to jump off a boat at the deeper part. π
End of the first week of our roadtrip from Sydney to Cairns. Week 2 and 3 coming up soon!
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