|Roadtrip Sydney to Brisbane|

After six weeks of working as a groom on Pip’s lovely horse farm my time has come to an end and I had to go on with my journey. So Kathi and me decided to travel up to Brisbane together and rent a car to be more flexible. Have you ever heard about car relocations? It’s actually a pretty cool alternative to the quite expensive normal car rentals. If a car rental needs their cars in another city they have the offers to bring the car to the city where they need it within a couple of days for free – you just have to pay for the fuel and if you want a better insurance for that time, you have to pay as well for that but it depends on the car hire. So we thought it’s a good way to explore the east coast up to Brisbane. Kathi and me had to stay for four nights in Sydney before we found a campervan that we could bring up to Brisbane.

 

In our hostel we’ve met Adam, an 32 years old English guy who worked for about three years in New Zealand and came now back to Australia to spent four more month on his work and holiday visa. He was looking for jobs and got a view job offers – one was on the Sunshine coast, which is close to Brisbane. We heard that he also didn’t liked Sydney that much so we asked him if he spontaneously wanna join our short road trip and he was in for the adventure

So the last night before we started, the three of us and a friend of Kathi went out together to the Sydney Tower Eye, which is slowly moving so that you have a 360-degree panorama of the whole city. When you just go in the bar on the 47^th floor of the tower you have to consume something worth 20 $ to enjoy the view. But the funny thing is, if tourists just wanna go up to the tower on the viewing platform, which is only a floor higher than the bar, they have to pay more – just to have the view and nothing else included like drinks So it’s a ‘nice-to-know-fact’ that you can drink some cocktails while sitting there and enjoying the great view 😉

In the next morning we checked out of the hostel, went to the train station, bought a ticket and only one minute before our train was heading to the car rental, they called us and cancelled our trip – it was almost unbelievable! Why does always happen something like that to me?! We were speechless at the first moment because we couldn’t believe it and the next moment we were so angry with them. How can they cancel the confirmation just half an hour before we wanted to pick up the car at 9am? So we tried to organize another car for the same day but unfortunately there were no cars available to Brisbane. However, we found a car to Hervey Bay, which is about three hours from Brisbane and Kathi decided to bring the car there and let Adam and me out in Brisbane. So we requested it and it took a while until they answered us. Adam was already willing to buy a car because he needs one later anyway. After a while Adam found one and made an appointment for a test-drive. But in the same minute he wanted to leave, the car rental e-mailed us and confirmed our request for the same day. So finally our road trip started 5 hours later as planned at 2pm and we were heading to our first stop in Nelson Bay.

Nelson Bay is a cute small city at the east coast and when we arrived we walked at the beach and I was so amazed by the fine and bright sand there – like a little child, which experienced sand for the first time 😀 I loved it to let it run through my fingers the whole time.

 

After we checked in the motel, we were going to the city and entered a country club, which was a pretty cool place. A few people went there to enjoy the Friday night. The funny thing was that the most people we were talking to have never seen and talked to foreigners in their town – so we were kind of special for them 😀 But for us it was a bit difficult to understand their quite hard accent. But anyway, we enjoyed the great atmosphere and had fun while playing pool, drinking beer, chatting with the locals and dancing around.

This was a great start for the trip

In the next morning we went up the little mountain, which was close by sea to enjoy the great view. On our way to Port Macquarie we stopped at big dunes and had a nice picnic in the Myall Lakes National Park. There I’ve seen pelicans and a dingo for the first time.

 

Next day we rented a boat for three hours of fishing in Port Macquarie and it was so much fun.

 

I was the first who caught a fish even if it was just a very small flat fish, which we called Mr. Flatty Adam used Mr. Flatty to go for bigger fishs but unfortunately it didn’t worked out so we rereleased him. Right before we had to go back, Kathi was catching a big one and it was a little fight to bring him up. So we thought that we got something for dinner but unfortunately Mr. Hooky wasn’t edible so we also rereleased him.

 

Afterwards we were heading to Coffs Harbour and stopped by a nice lighthouse to see the sunset. At dusk animals are getting active and running around. This time I’ve seen a couple of kangaroos for my first time and it was so amazing! We could go so close and they didn’t really cared about us. This moment I realized again that I’m really in Australia 😀

 

As we arrived in the hostel in Coffs Harbour the great place and the atmosphere amazed us. Everything was so clean and tidy with a nice kitchen, outside area, a TV-chill-area with oven and a fish tank as well as various equipment that everybody can rent for free. So we decided to go kayaking and stand-up paddling the next morning, which was quite fun. Kathi and me decided to go kayaking because we didn’t wanted to get too wet due to the weather. But in the end we were more wet than Adam on his SUP 😀

 

Unfortunately I became sick after the fishing and the kayaking so I couldn’t enjoy the time in Byron Bay – our next stop. I just went up to the lighthouse next morning where we’ve seen some whales so close to the coast. It was amazing to see these big creatures under water and coming up to the surface to get air.

Afterwards we stopped at a little waterfall where Adam wanted to jump in. It was a little paradise and due to the fog and some sunbeams the atmosphere was great

 

Our next stop was the little village Nimbin, which is known as little Netherlands of Australia and as we arrived we understood why 😀 It was a cute village with so many hippies and it smelled everywhere like weed. As we were walking through the streets people came and asked us if we wanna buy some. And as we arrived in our hostel it was the same but it was a little green paradise up on a hill – so peaceful and calm.

 

On our last day we stopped in Surfers Paradise for a picnic and enjoyed the sun at the beach before we went on to our final destination Brisbane.

 

Kathi was leaving us the next day to bring the car back to Hervey Bay so it was time to say goodbye, unfortunately. But we will definitely see each other in Germany!

So Adam and me stayed in Brisbane for a while. He was looking for a car to go on to the sunshine coast for his job and I have to organize some stuff, work on my documentary and look for a job as well if I like it here. So at first I have to get well again and then I’ll explore the new city Right now it’s quite hard to get to know ne people because I totally lost my voice – I really can’t talk at all 😀 But hopefully it’s getting better soon – so stay tuned!