Day 13 - Crowdy Bay National Park and Karuah Nature Reserve

Tuesday 19th January

We left Delicate Nobby early and drove down the coast to Crowdy Bay National Park where we’d both been looking forward to staying. On the way we bought another body board so that we could hit the waves together. How on earth we’re going to carry all this stuff after handing the car in, I don’t know! In any case, you can’t be in Australia without carrying a board of some sort in our opinion. The camping grounds there are extremely popular and thus crowded (hence the name of the Nat Park?!) due to school holidays and also to the surfing possibilities on all three beaches in the park.

This is a great place to stay for families as it has all the facilities available and there are a couple of quieter camping grounds on different beaches if you wanted a more tranquil stay - yet again we were impressed with the opportunities to camp right next to such beautiful beaches. Wallabies had made an appearance yet again and were munching away right next to peoples’ tents!

However, while deciding which beach to stay at we received a phone call from a lady called Wendy Lawson down in the Hunter Valley. Some of her grapes are ready for picking and she wondered whether we are still interested in helping out. We jumped at this opportunity and arranged to be pickers on Thursday! Amazing. We are driving down to stay with her tomorrow evening. Knowing this, we decided to make a head-start on the driving; after a quick surf together at Diamond Head beach, we headed further down the coast while checking our new camping book for a ‘free-camp’ on the way.

With a warning to pack insect repellent, we followed the directions in our book to Karuah Nature Reserve. The road to the camping ground was the worst we’ve been on yet: “Cnventional vehicle access in dry weather” is what we were advised and with it being dry we went for it, only to find that a 4x4 would have been far more suitable. Anyhow, we managed it eventually and prepared to spend yet another night, just the two of us, in the forest. There were no facilities and the camp ground looked like it hadn’t been used in a while… We did manage to have the best dinner we’ve had yet due to the addition of PARMASAN! We caved in today and bought the cheapest we could find - I added it to our pasta, veg and sauce and it made our day! We made a huge campfire and sat around it until it went out.

Day 12 - Back to Delicate Nobby

Monday 18th January

Yep, today we returned to our favoured home, the wonderfully named Delicate Nobby Camping Ground. Only after picking up four burgers from our favourite butcher in Crescent Head. We even managed to pitch tent in pretty much the same spot as last time, shaded by the trees. After spending last night alone in the state forest, we were pleased to be back where there were people on holiday.

What a great afternoon we had: Chris had a second attempt at fishing but concluded that the sea was too rough for fishing from the rocks. I went body boarding finally! Yey! Such fun, I loved it. I was surrounded by people from the Summer Surf Camp trying to catch their first waves which was nice.

The pump wasn’t working today so all toilet uses had to be flushed away using a bucket of water. The showers weren’t on either. However, the ranger had put up a sign telling guests that due to this the fees had been halved. Not that he comes to collect the money everyday anyway - this is the guy who comes around every three days asking, “Just the one night, then?” making it nice and cheap for everyone. Nevertheless, half price fees sounded good to us, we had our portable shower anyway!

We ended up spending a pleasant evening sharing a campfire with a semi-local, middle-aged guy who had been on a surfing trip with friends and decided to stay an extra night. He told us bitterly about how New South Wales is one of the most heavily taxed states in Australia - it’s apparently 45% for high earners which for him is $55,000 in tax (Hmmm, you want to compare it with Britain, mate!). Unlike the Brits, Aussies don’t seem to mind telling you how much they’ve paid for things and how much they earn after just meeting you. He wasn’t the first to have imparted such information. It's not bragging or anything, it's just acceptable here.

He also told us all about his plans to fit solar panels around his home in order to produce his own electricity. Apparently the government are encouraging people to install these by offering interest-free loans of around A$7000 to put towards the cost in addition to buying any excess energy from you. This man already had water tanks installed so seemed to be moving more and more towards self-sustenance. It seems that anyone living rurally in Australia (and that’s a lot of people) has their own water tanks which they use to collect rain water. Rain usually provides enough water to last for the whole year. We found all of this really interesting.

Day 11 - Anvil Rock

Today we woke up to the sound of a wallaby hopping next to the tent. We packed up early in an attempt to do one of the Unesco heritage walks to Anvil rock. The 1.5 hr trail was much more suited to our limited abilities. We treked through a forrest with enormous boulders, through a swampy valley and up a mountain of rocks. Don't get me wrong, the trail was quite easy despite the almost fictional landscape. We finished it in 1h27!

Orrara State Park (after the storm)

Gibralter Range

Envigourated we drove back to the coast to find a free campsite from thousands in a new campsite book that we reluctantly bought for more than retail value at an information centre. But this was priceless - a source that combined all the camp ground networks including national parks, national reserves, state parks, overnight/glorified rest stops and holiday parks. We now could find the OFFICIALLY free campsites that had eluded us from the friendly advice of campers. Why didn't we buy a book earlier?! No more NSW monetized national parks for holiday makers. No more ethical dilemmas : )

And so we arrived at Orrara state forrest just in time to throw up our gear before a thunderstorm hit our site (at the top of a mountain!). Luckily the sheltered picnic table allowed us to cook up some beer-and-mustard-braised sausages and mash. My campfire attempts were washed away, but at least Stef's re-inforced ropes on the tent kept it from blowing away in the howling wind.

Anvil Rock

Day Ten - Gibraltar Range National Park

Saturday 16 January 2010

Wow. We awoke this morning to the magnificent melody of two Lyre birds from our tent in Washpool National Park. It sounded like way more than one species, let alone just two birds. Apparently these birds will, within the space of only a few minutes, sing continuously to their hearts’ content using not only their own song but imitating the song of other birds too. It was incredible to listen to - magical really. We’ve honestly never heard anything like it and wish we’d been able to record it.

The melodious Lyre Bird

After we’d packed the tent away, we decided to check out a tiny little section of the World Heritage Walk which spans between Washpool and Gibraltar Range National Parks and takes a whopping five days to complete. After an hour uphill in one direction we turned back as there was another walk we wanted to go on that we‘d actually be able to complete: The Washpool Walk, an 8.5km walk which takes in the park‘s main forest types.

Washpool National Park is home to the world’s largest stand of coachwood trees. We saw many of these in addition to Red Cedars, the King of all trees. This is the most sought after of all trees due to its use for cabinets, panelling and staircases - they’ve been recorded as growing up to 60m! The ones we saw were no higher than 48m but were over 1000 years old - very impressive.

We were really enjoying the walk and learning about the different tree and rainforest types on the educational posters until… the attack of the leeches! Being city-types, we were both absolute babies about this and couldn’t enjoy the rest of the walk due to having both been bitten at least once and continually finding leeches all over our shoes and trousers! We continued the second half of our walk in somewhat of a rush due to our fear and dislike of these gruesome creatures. Wimps!

De-leeching session!

Huge Lizard

The end of the walk

After a total of 13.5 km, we were pretty tired - not bad for a day’s work! With this in mind, the decision to drive the short distance to Gibraltar National Park was an easy one. Mulligan’s Hut campground had exceptionally clean and modern toilet facilities (a treat after the smelly composting one at Washpool) and even cold showers - excellent news! As soon as we arrived however, a huge thunderstorm began and we barely had enough time to get the tent up and a little bit of tarp shelter before the rain lashed down. We enjoyed our tomato soup under our makeshift shelter with the sound of pounding rain overhead.

Quote from Christophe around the campfire later in the evening: “Today’s been like being back in Singapore Zoo! But for free!”. What he was referring to were the huge number of animals, birds and general nature we have seen today. Beginning with the melodies of the Lyre birds, our day progressed with sightings of the mega-lizard and the attack of the leeches which in turn was followed by… a visit from a number of wallabies! Yet again, we were initially babies about this and as the first wallaby approached our picnic table completely unperturbed by the presence of mere humans, Christophe advised me to pick up my chair, put it in front of myself as a shield and back up calmly to the car while he bravely acted like a man, clearing up anything of value that it might try to steal or break.

Spot the Wallaby!

We realise now, only a few hours later, that this was completely unnecessary as these animals are completely harmless unless they feel threatened (by, let’s say, someone poking a chair leg in their face and acting hostile!). I’m sure if any of our Aussy neighbours saw us, they would have had a good laugh. We saw a good number more bird specimans such as a blue eyed (??? something!) which was amazingly able to hang from a tree trunk sideways while its body remained vertical and forward-looking. Our final visitor today came just as we had lit our nightly campfire, a beautiful owl. She stayed with us until we went to bed and we were fascinated by her enormous eyes and the way she so majestically turned her head. A great end to a great day filled with nature.

Day 9 Washpool National Park

Yesterday we went from idyllic camp under a eucalyptus tree by the beach to pitching between a dead animal, rotten smell, ant piles and a guy who was 'mad as a meat axe'. It was time to move on.

Luckily this cloud came with a silver lining. As we gravitated away from the looney guy we met a lovely couple from Brisbane who encouraged to camp and hike in their favorite parts of Australian national parks. It has all been about beaches and BBQs here so far. Now we're headed inland to camp in some rainforests and backcountry bushwalking. Penny and Lyndsey first pointed us towards the Smokey Cape Lighthouse and Trial Bay Goal before leaving the coast deeper into the back country.

Washpool National Park is the largest rainforest wilderness in New South Wales. It is one of 49 that make up the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Central Eastern Rainforest Reserves - the largest area of subtropical rainforests in the world.

After a few hours we were getting a little desperate to get there and find camp before the sun went down. A sign along the road to Washpool National Park read Last food and gas for 116km.

Up the winding mountain road we found a campsite deep in the rainforest. The forrest lived up to it’s promise and showered us just as our risotto dinner was ready to serve. We took the pot into the car and was ready for an early night in the tent. Luckily it let up and we could warm up by the fire before a long day trekking the World Heritage trail tomorrow.

We've basically been living a very outdoors life from tent and cars. There are excellent free sites everywhere often with fireplaces, grills, showers and toilets. This becomes a little more complicated when it rains.

Day Eight - Smokey Cape, Hat Head National Park

Thursday 14th January

The backpackers’ guide to cost effective errand-running while camping:

* Find a free wifi signal to call home in the Australian AM - outside the pharmacy in Crescent Head, for example.

* Seek out a place, preferably an independent campsite, where you can do your laundry. If you’re lucky, you can also find a few plug sockets to charge all your flash packer items: phones, ipods, netbooks etc

* While your laundry is in, sneak in for a cheeky hot shower, following a camper who will type in the code to unlock the door - this could be the only hot shower you’ll have in a week.

* When fully clean and your laundry is either in the dryer or, even better, drying for free on the washing lines provided for campers, enjoy a coffee at the cheap and cheerful campsite café

* Don’t forget to fill up your water canister with either drinking water or at least water for washing up - this will come in handy later when you stay at a National Park or ‘free camp’ with no amenities

* Finally, find a McDonalds - not difficult in Australia - and spend a few hours doing internet jobs such as research and blogging using their free (but rather rubbish) wifi. There should be a plug socket too where you can charge for free if you haven’t managed earlier in the day. DO NOT buy anything - instead, ask for a tap water which you can then cradle for the next three hours… perhaps treat yourself to a 50cent ice-cream if you feel you can justify it.

* On the way out, ask for two large cups of ice each - this will be used to put in the coolbox (or ‘eskie’ in Ozzy) to ensure the beers stay cold.

We’ve finally left Delicate Nobby! Though it’s been the best place we’ve stayed so far with everything we could want - excluding a nice, hot shower - we felt it was time that we explored other places. We thus headed further up the coast to Hat Head National Park.

Hat Head is on the coast and Smoky Cape camping ground where we stayed is set back in the dunes of Smoky Beach. Chris and I went for a lovely stroll on this, yet another beautiful, unspoiled beach after dinner.

Smoky Cape Beach, Hat Head National Park

Yesterday, we had decided to invest in a ‘hobby item’ each: for Chris a fishing rod, complete with all the tackle PLUS an Ozzy cool bag for his beers… I had been undecided on whether to go ahead and spend the money seeing as mine was an item that I couldn’t really take with me: a body board. I had waited an extra day to sleep on it but today finally decided to invest… YEY! I couldn’t believe I’d been at Delicate Nobby all this time and hadn’t been able to check out the waves properly. Neither of us could wait to use our hobby items.

As it happened, we arrived at Hat Head too late to try either of our things, having done a lot of cost-effective errands in addition to being indecisive about where to spend the night. By the time we arrived and had set up camp it was already late and tea-time (Stag chilli and rice again!)

Oh my gosh though - we ended up camping next to an absolute nutter. A man on his own who looked very strong and we assumed he had been in the military - everything was very neat and tidy and efficient and he had an army flask… but he spoke to himself and made funny faces and gosh… We ended up befriending a lovely couple who had set up camp on the other side of us: Penny and Lindsay. We spent the evening chatting with them, feeling the benefits of safety in numbers while the nutter next door danced and sang wildly to the radio, exclaiming things like: “Stop playing things I don’t know the words to! If you keep playing songs I don’t know, this is what you’ll get” (presumably describing his weird, fake singing). Agggggh! Very scary. We really were going to pack the tent up and move it elsewhere but we more fearful of causing offence, worrying that he may come after us in the night. So we risked it and stayed put, listening to him say things like, “Mate, what you’re looking for is in the white car there. I’ve told you once, it’s in that car”… meaning our car! Aggh!

Did we survive the night? Check in next time to find out….

Penny and Lindsey

(P.S Thanks so much for the National Parks book and all your advice!)

How to BBQ like a German

If you’ve ever been on a ‘hike’ with a German, you’ll soon have realized that there is a severe difference between what we non-Germans might class as a hike and the equivalent in their language which is a Wandern. I once made the mistake of accepting an invitation to go on a Wandern with some Germans four years ago. I mistakingly accepted this invitation while clad in a 60s fancy dress outfit at a party on the morning of said Wandern. Presuming that this ‘hike’ had been organized there and then and for fun (!!) I awoke after only two hours sleep to meet the Germans at an ungodly hour, expecting a nice stroll in the Swiss mountains.

No.

Not only did myself and the girls (fellow non-Germans, Jess and Sara) not bring any water or food - this was incredibly stupid and studenty in hindsight - we didn’t have correct ‘equipment’ or footwear. Furthermore we certainly weren’t expecting the six hour trek through the Alps after only two hours sleep and a lot of vino the night before.

What this experience taught me was that a German will always do things properly and - no, not properly but overly so - and FULL ON. And obviously never to go on a Wandern again. (Our trek in Laos would have seemed like a walk in the park to any German, I think!).

So when we met the Germans at Delicate Nobby and they revealed they were going to grill some food that evening on the campfire with some more Germans who were arriving, I expected big things. Nothing however - not even my knowledge of what a Wandern entails - could have prepared me for what went on at Delicate Nobby that evening.

Stage one:

Build a sheep-pen style structure with an opening away from your own tent (if it points at others’ so be it)

Stage two:

With a roll of industrial wire that you handily have in the back of the VolksWagen, create a grill with pliers from your fully-stocked tool-box (Goodness knows where you got that from as a backpacker!)

Stage three:

Suspend homemade, industrial grill from the sheep-pen using the exact measurement of a beer bottle

Stage four:

Collect firewood

Stage five:
Start your roaring flame

Stage six:

Stick the kangaroo skewers on there

Stage seven:

As you are German, continue to make improvements throughout the cooking process. This must be done PROPERLY after all!

Stage eight:

Settle down to your meal!

Stage nine:

After all the excitement has died down (and you have almost burned down the trees above) entertain your guests with the Ukulele

We would like to thank Torben, Mano and German engineering for letting us enjoy this experience!

Crescent Head

As you can tell, we truly love the beach life and campsite in Delicate Nobby. We have made ourselves quite at home. The Routine - Beer, butcher and ice runs to the nearest little town, Crescent Head, which is also where the long board was introduced to Australia after it was invented in Malibu, California (a little bit of surfing history).

Crescent Head also had a few secret backpacker amenities. Our German neighbors tipped us off to some hot water showers at a campsite near the beach. There was also a public tap of drinking water at the picnic area to fill up our water tank. We even stumbled upon a free wifi signal outside a pharmacy where we (pathetically) would park our car and skype our parents until the batteries died.

Although the road to town had it’s share of pothole dodging, I never grew tired of the stunning coastal views and huge kangaroos that were usually hopping in the fields.

Up till now we have been eating fairly well for backpackers with pasta and anything in a can, such as: Chili and rice, Aldi beef stew (not so good), pasta with Dolmeo sauce, Easy Mac, and Heinz soup. Groceries are VERY expensive in Australia, you see, with one notable exception…meat for the bbq! And so the butcher in town provided our daily menu of sausages or "Rissoles" which are flavored burgers like garlic, tomato and bacon, Indian spice and macaedamia, or tomato marinade.

With only these daily trips to town, we were happy to stay put each day and not have to pack, unpack, search for a new home. The only thing we had to do was hunt for food and catch waves. Everyhting went to plan - well, almost.

I usually am the first to crawl out of our tent each morning when the birds start calling and the surf school roles in. The first order of the day is to get the kettle on the stove. This morning however I managed to set the keys down inside the trunk while changing clothes. The trunk door shut before my sleepy eyes and foggy head could realize what went on. Then panic struck. we are miles from the nearest town. Everything we own was locked inside the car. But the trunk cleverly has no open lever on the outside. So - pas de panique - Steph got up. On the way back from the bathroom we asked one couple if they could help. Coincidentally, they just broke into their car to get keys the day before. We managed to pry the window open. Many attempts passed unsuccessfull. It turns out the clever Carolla designers in Japan have learned to shape the unlock buttons in such a round shape that umbrella wires don't stand a chance through the window crack. The Germans woke up and immediately tried engineering a way to pick the trunk lock.

An hour passed and more and more campers came to help. We realized this was a great way to meet the whole campsite. Finally a quiet fireman stopped overlooking and decided we could use a helping hand from experience. He bent a hanger to just the right shape and had us back in the car in less than ten minutes, saving us a day of headaches, repairman charges, and luckily we could laugh about all of this later that night around the campfire.

DAY 5-6-7 - Delicate Nobby

We have now travelled farther up the coast after stopping at 'boomerang beach', 'booti booti' and 'old bottlebut'. Over the past few days, we have been staying next to some spectacular beaches - the white sand and long surf stretches 7 miles or more, just on the other side of the rolling sand dunes from our tent. But we haddn't seen anything yet...

For the past few days we have made a great camp set up here at Delicate Nobby, in the Limeburners Creek Nature Reserve. Our gear has been put to good use. The hammock is up, our chairs are around the stove and small campfire, we made a drinking water station, some shelves in the trees, portable sink, and the pocket shower is hanging from one of the three eucalyptus trees that give us shade and home to several different kinds of owls. No kualas yet - but we have spotted a few kangaroos crossing the road!

While steph was asleep with her book in the hammock, I outfitted our site like the swiss family robinson. Steph saw the pleasure I took in these projects and has since called them my Dad-style jobs. We even found two of those solar yard lamps for 3 dollars each to add a little light to our tent's entryway and porch. Steph is very proud of our 'chateau'.

A typical day here starts with the surf school driving in to teach 30-40 beginners how to catch some waves. The residents slowly start to appear from their tents. The facilities are minimal. Although the bog water from the tap has dark, ice-tea look to it, there are toilets, outdoor showers and even piles of firewood for your campfire. The ranger keeps everything clean and casually comes by every three days as a 'debt collector'. This is a very laidback alternative to the monetized national parks which also come with lots of rules outlawing dogs and sometimes campfires too.

Soon a wicked' van pulled up next to ours with german backpackers, Mano and Torben. They were wrapping up their engineering student days in Australia with a campervan trip. After more than a month, they came back for a second stay here and confirmed that this campsite was special - one of the best they had found along the coast. They picked up an Australian accent and some cliché words like ‘heaps’ (meaning many) which I think is top of our list for Australian words.

Day Four - Booti Booti National Park

Sunday 10th January

I must say, I've been pretty impressed with Christophe's driving over in Australia, it being his first time driving on the 'wrong' side of the road as he likes to call it. He's really had no problems except... he has the terrifying tendency to drive straight through roundabouts. We've nearly been slam-dunked twice and thus, much to his frustration, I have promoted myself from mere back-seat driver to full-on driving instructor: "Give way to the left, Christophe. Give way. GIVE WAY! SHTTTTOPPPP! AAAAAAAAAGH!". Gosh.

Anyhow... We finally have a great map which shows camping grounds. ADVICE: don’t go camping in an unknown part of the world without a decent map. Advice we usually follow but this time we couldn’t bring ourselves to part with the $15! We’ve a few free ones now - yey! Our first stop was to check out ‘Boomerang Beach’ which a man in a surf shop near Sydney had told us about.

Boomerang Beach

What a relief to finally have a map and not just drive around semi-aimlessly straight into roundabouts! We could finally PLAN! Deciding to head for the coast just above the Myall Lakes National Park area, we stopped for a Macaroni Cheese lunch at Smith’s lake. The view was absolutely gorgeous: dazzling sunlight over crystal clear waters. We felt so lucky to be on the road at this moment! Some Germans rocked up in a ‘Wicked’ van (yet another company which rents vans to backpackers, easily distinguished by their graffiti-syle paintwork) and shared our picnic table. It was all very civilised and they even cracked open the red wine!

Lunch beside Smith Lake

Not far down this road we found our campground for the night in Booti Booti National Park: The Ruins Campground. The campground was on a kind of sandstrip between the ocean and Wallis Lake and was set back from ‘7 mile beach’, a gloriously empty, pristine beach. The facilities here are fantastic; there are even hot showers! It’s more like an independent campsite in some respects due to the amenities. It’s a popular campground with families and it’s great to see all the children playing out on their bikes.

7 Mile Beach - Booti Booti National Park

Because the campground is in a National Park there’s a fee to pay both for the car and per person to camp. Camping works on an honour system in Australian National Parks. People put their fee - which varies from campground to campground depending on facilities available - in an envelope, leaving it in a designated box after tearing off the receipt to leave on their tent/car. Apparently, a ranger will check for receipts in the morning. It’s a great system really and makes the whole experience seem mightily relaxed. Today, however, the box for receipts was closed off and the pay station for car parking was out of order meaning there was no way for us to pay… score! We planned to set off early in the morning before Ranger Danger time! This was the advice of one of our Greek neighbours…

One of our jobs today was to get Chris’ leg checked out as it’s been giving him a lot of pain: a mosquito bite from suburban-Sydney has grown HUGE, red and painful. Dungog, however, is such a small, quaint town that their hospital isn’t open on Sundays! We spoke to the receptionist who is there ready to call a doctor in if there’s an emergency but she sent us on our way to Forster, the next biggest town. We’ve decided to go there tomorrow as we assess his leg won’t yet have fallen off. I also plan on going on a big walk tomorrow as there’s a lookout point a few kilometres from the beach that I want to check out before it gets too hot. It’s been made easy and accessible for people to get outdoors and enjoy nature here with marked walks of varying difficulty wherever you go, it seems!

We spent a joyful afternoon on ‘7 mile beach’ reading ,before putting up the tent in the early evening while the sun went down. We camped next to an Ozzy family whose son was celebrating his 16th birthday with a load of friends. They’d planned this big surfing-birthday celebration a year ago apparently and came to apologise for the noise! We were just pleased to have a great spot to camp for the night with hot showers, washing up facility, somewhere to charge our electronics plus access to a great beach! We ate our delicious tea (pasta, tinned veg and dolmio sauce!) while listening to the 16 year olds singing along to their guitar.