Driving 3100km in 6 days

12th - 17th December 2012

I managed to bag myself a relocation car from Cairns to Sydney. The cheapest and best way to travel down the coast. The idea is that companies have cars in the wrong place and rather than paying a member of staff to drive them to the other end of the country they hire them out dirt cheap. You have to travel when they want you to and within a time frame but its so cheap it makes it worth it. It cost me $5 a day for 6 days for the van, $50 admin fee and I would get refunded $300 worth of fuel. So in theory it was only going to cost me $80 but that's if you drive straight there near enough as the bird flies so if you go round the curved coast of Australia then obviously its going to cost you more. I ended up paying $300 in fuel myself and I even went over the kilometre limit of 3000km but the woman forgot to charge me for that.

But $380 for this trip is an absolute effing bargain...

Day 1:

I got a taxi to Britz where I picked up my huge 4WD campervan! It was proper cool and has enough room for 3 people so plenty for just me, myself and I. The single bed is on the bottom and the roof pops up to make a double bed but I just used it so I could stand up in the car. I really had fun driving it!

The Beast!

I set off inland rather than along the coast as there's more to see on the Atherton Tablelands than there is on the Cassowary Coast. This meant driving up a few mountain roads which was no problem for me!

First of many nice views

First stop was Lake Barrine. This is one of two extinct volcano craters that have filled with water. Lake Eacham was 10 minutes down the road but this looked so much like a regular lake I decided to skip the second one. There was a massive tree at the lake though, 45m tall and 6m in girth so I did the compulsory tree hug.

Lake Barrine

Stuffed Cassowary

Tree hugging

A few miles back (I accidentally drove past it) was the Cathedral Fig Tree. A huge 500 year old green fig that is supposedly shaped like a cathedral. Its an impressive sight. The sign said if 24 people linked arms around it then they still wouldn't quite touch.

Cathedral Fig

All part of 1 tree!

A few more miles down the road is another fig tree. This one is the Curtain Fig Tree and formed by the tree that had the strangler fig on it falling over onto another tree and the roots from the fig finding there way back to the ground.

Curtain Fig Tree

Just before you enter Atherton there is Hallorans Hill where you can see for miles and miles over the Tablelands. There isn't much in Atherton. I had heard of the Crystal Caves which houses the biggest Amethyst Geode in the world, the Empress of Uruguay but I wasn't paying $26 to go see it so I just had a look around the shop.

View from Hallorans Hill

Atherton

This cost $4400

A picture of a picture of the Empress of Uruguay

In the afternoon I went to see the a bit of the waterfall circuit south of Milanda. The biggest and most famous of these waterfalls is Millaa Millaa falls. Its the location for the video of Peter Andre's Mysterious Girl and the Herbel Essences Hair Flick advert. There was a bus load of people there all taking pictures doing the hair flick thing.

Millaa Millaa falls

hair flick

On my way to the next waterfall I got ambushed by cows! There were hundreds of them crossing the road and I had to drive through them. The next waterfall, Zillie, was a bit shit because you couldn't actually go down and see it properly so I drove to the next one, Elinjaa falls. This one was 5 minute walk down a hill.

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Zillie falls

Elinjaa falls

It was getting late in the day now and I hadn't travelled south all that much so I set off to where I was planning to stay the night just outside of Townsville. I stopped off at a few places along the road like Crawfords lookout at Wooroonooran National Park which I think is the best name for a park ever! I also stopped for a break in Cardwell. The beach is right alongside the main road so I stopped for a bite to eat.

I stayed at a free rest stop just outside of Townsville that night. I popped the top up for the first time and I was surprised how roomy it was but then there was only me. I set up the bottom bed and watched a bit of TV on my laptop before the battery died and tried to go to sleep.

Wooroonooran National Park

Cardwell beach

Inside the beast!

Day 2:

It wasn't a very comfortable nights sleep. I had all the windows open but it was still really hot and stuffy in the campervan. I felt proper minging too so when I got into Townsville I went and had a shower in the changing rooms by the beach.

Townsville beach

Magnetic Island

Townsville is a small city with a massive rock right in the middle of that kinda looks out of place. I drove up it and there must have been the whole town jogging up and down it. It was still only 8.30am so its before people start work but there would be no chance of me jogging up that hill first thing in the morning! The view from the top is amazing. You can see the whole city. I watched planes take off, boats coming and trains setting off from the station. It really felt like I was watching the progress on simcity! It was really strange.

Castle Hill

View from Castle Hill

Townsville

As I was up so early I had an extra couple of hours to do something so 5 hours later I went for a swim in the lagoon at Airlie Beach. It was nice to reminisce about last time I was here on the last road trip. I spent a couple of hours here before heading towards Rockhampton.

Lagoon at Airlie Beach

Airlie Beach

Nice sunset

I was getting tired driving so I didn't get as far as I had hoped and I pulled off the highway to a rest area that was signposted. I never found that rest area! I drove around for about 10 minutes desperately low an fuel as well and decided I'd just pull up to this grass banking at the side of a dirt road and sleep there. I thought if worse comes to worst and the police come I'll just tell them it was dangerous for me to be driving. No one disturbed me though.

Day 3:

A much better nights sleep even if I did keep checking outside every time a car drove past.

View from my 'Bedroom'

Today the first stop was the Capricorn Caves just north of Rockhampton. It was really cool walking through all these caves. I've only seen English ones and I can't really remember them.

Caves map

The Grand Entrance

It was a guided tour so this guy was telling as about all the different rock formations and how they were made. These are essentially dry caves so any stalagmites and stuff take thousands of years to form so the caves are pretty much in the same state as when they were discovered 100 years ago.

The Harp

There was a massive drop under this bridge!

There is a different kind of tour you can do in these caves. You can do adventure caving where you start at the bottom and climb your way up through small holes in the rocks. This was one of the holes that you climb up and I can tell you that I was not tempted in the slightest.

Tight squeeze

More caves

They called this the sunset formation. With the light its supposed to look like people sat at the bottom of palm tress on a beach at sunset. Clutching at straws me thinks!

Sunset

The most impressive thing about these caves is the church. A vast cavern in the centre of mountain where people often get married. It is said to have better acoustics than the Opera House. Our guy played us some music out of what looked like 2 sets of ipod speakers and it sounded like there was 6 speakers with surround sound! You could see it was quite a spiritual place to get married. He turned all the lights off at one point and you couldn't see a single thing, not even a hand infront of you face.

the church

In the pulpit

The last bit of the tour was my favourite bit. For all I said about not wanting to squeeze through tight spaces in the rocks it was actually a lot of fun. This wasn't quite as tight as the other one but it was a cool zig zag passage where you had to duck and weave your way through it. There was a fairly large guy in our group so I was surprised he managed to make it through.

Crawling through caves

I officially left the tropics when I left Rockhampton but if anything it got warmer. I drove for a couple of hours when I saw a sign for Awooga Dam about 6km off the highway and I thought why not! So I went and sat on the edge of a lake for an hour and had dinner. It was a really nice spot and there were people there on holiday.

The dam

The lake

Further on down the road I arrived in Bundaberg, the home of Bundaberg Rum. I went to the distillery but the last tour was at 4.30 so I was too late to go in. I don't even like rum anyway.

Bundaberg factory

Big ass bottle

I'd heard of the Bundaberg barrel but i had no idea what was in it so I went for a look and it was just a cafe that sold lots of different types of Bundaberg.

The bundaberg barrel

Tonight was the only night I stayed in a campsite. It was right on the sea near Bundaberg in a place called Bargara. I had electricity so I charged up my laptop and finally watched the final of English X Factor!

View from my 'Bedroom'

After tea I went and saw some turtles! It was probably the highlight of my whole trip. There's a sanctuary called Mon Repos. Its about a 1km stretch of beach with the biggest concentration of nesting turtles of the whole coastline of Australia and for $11 you get to go and watch them. You get split into groups and then you sit there and wait for a turtle to come to shore. The guide told us that sometimes a turtle will arrive before they can even get everyone in the park and sometimes you can be waiting 4 or 5 hours. We were lucky. I was in the third and last group and I only had to wait an hour.

We went down onto the beach where we weren't allowed to shine any lights so we could barely see a thing and walked up the beach. The turtle we were going to see was a 10 minute walk up the beach but after about 2 minutes we had to stop whilst one went right across in front of us! Any light or movement and the turtle will just go back into the sea so we had to sneak up behind her whilst she was digging her hole and wait until she started laying her eggs. Only then it would be safe to move around her and take photos. It was an amazing thing to witness. She laid her eggs, covered her hole and then wandered back down to the sea.

Turtle

Day 4:

The next day i went to Noosa. Last time i was here i didn’t get to see too much of it so i planned to go to the beach and then have a look around. It was really busy so when i finally got parked up and went to the beach i decided i would just stay there for a couple of hours. Ive seen enough national parks by now anyway.

Noosa Beach

As i was driving down to Noosa there was a lot of smoke around. Enough to make me cough a bit and wind my window up. When i got to the beach i saw there was a huge fire to the north. Australia is expecting a really bad season for fires this year so i really hope i don’t get caught up in one.

FIRE!

After lunch i carried on down the road. I took a detour to see the glass house mountains which were pretty disappointing. The lookout is right in the middle of them so you can’t even see them all at once and there were trees in the way too. I did stop by Steve Irwins zoo though. It was $70 to get in and i didn’t really have time so i just took a picture of the entrance and carried on.

Steve Irwin Zoo

I'm hoping the outside is better than the inside

Glasshouse Mountains

An hour later and i was in Brisbane. I never really got to have a look around here properly last time either so it was nice to go exploring properly. The weather was much nicer this time around which was good.

 

Brissy

I walked through the centre of Brisbane and saw the Anzac memorial and the Botanic Gardens. Brisbane is very much the same as Sydney in terms of look and feel so it didn’t feel like it had anything new.

Anzac Memorial

War statue

Botanic Gardens

Bamboo Trees

I drove out of Brisbane as the sun went down and headed for the mountains. I stayed in a small rest area at the side of the road. I wasn’t entirely sure I was allowed to stay here but as I got into bed another campervan pulled up beside me so I felt better and went to sleep.

Day 5:

It was an early start as I had lots to fit in. I went to Springbrook National Park where there are waterfalls, lookouts and lots of walking tracks. I went to Purlingbrook falls where you can walk all the way down to the bottom of it and even walk behind it. I think I must have been the first person in the park that day as I walked through so many spider webs on the way down to the bottom of the falls. In the end I started waving a stick about in front of me as I walked. I must of looked like a right tit but there wasn’t  anyone else around.

Hollow tree

Purlingbrook falls

Springbrook National Park

Bottom of the falls

There were many lookouts along the road through the park and you could just about see the skyscrapers of the Gold Coast in the distance. There was one lookout called ‘Best Of All Lookout’ so I had high expectations when I walked up there but i think they got the name right.

Gold Coast in the distance

Best of All Lookout

Lizard

Just round the corner was Natural Bridge where water has worn a hole in the rock. It was quite impressive really. You could walk into the cave where the waterfall falls into.

Natural Bridge

There was much more to see here but time was getting on and I was still 10 hours from Sydney and the van had to be handed in the next day so I hit the road. I stopped at Coffs Harbour for an hour for a rest and some tea. Its a big fishing town so I went with tradition and had Fish & Chips. They've built the harbour so that there is a walkway to a small island just out to sea. It was full of seagulls and really windy!

This was the first time that I really didn't want to get back into the van. I was sick of driving but it was the final leg so I drove for a few more hours before stopping at another free rest stop.

Muttonbird Island National Reserve

Coffs Harbour

DAY 6:

My second visit to Newcastle and once again it was cloudy and a bit wet. I went for a walk up to the lighthouse. It was a bit chilly so it felt a bit like Blackpool on a summers day.

Newcastle

cold!

The whole way down the East Coast I didn't have a problem with the driving. I enjoyed the open and empty roads of Queensland, even the busy streets of Brisbane and the Gold Coast weren't that bad. Sydney on the other hand is the most stressful place to drive through! The traffic, the streets, the drivers themselves! Trying to navigate through the heart of Sydney with my sat nav on my phone was so annoying.

I finally made it to the Britz office. I'd driven 3100km and seen so much. It cost me more than I thought but it was worth it and something I will hopefully get to do again before I leave