Finally, we are posting travel activities for the first month of our trip. Plenty of excuses, but no deadlines and retirement justify most of it.
Transit to Australia went according to plan with a morning arrival to a cool Sydney. We spent the next four days with Merrilyn’s Aunt Louise and shopping to outfit the RV. Encountered difficulty getting the Mobile Broadband internet capability set up, but perservered and got it a week later. Telstra can keep you connected through their Mobile Phone (Cell Phone) towers throughout most of the country and provides a high speed connection around the larger cities. We arrived at MAW RV (owned by Warrick & Anne Marie Levy) to pick up our RV and spent the next three days there, getting to know it and them. Lots of details and check lists to get familiar with. Warrick & Anne Marie were great hosts and made us feel right at home, in our new mobile home.
Mum Hill enjoyed the RV and a late lunch at the “Wetlands” a bird reserve near her house and which she spent a lot of time making the whole project happen with major donations from industry.
We headed North to the warmer weather, ending up at Merrilyn’s brother’s little piece of paradise in Rosebank New South Wales (NSW) — near Byron Bay, the eastern most point of Australia. We arrived in time to enjoy a “Rosebank” community dinner at a neighbor’s home — it was a Thai meal prepared by a local chef and served at Neil’s place. We got lots of information from all the people there about our upcoming travels. Mike and Anne have just completed building a beautiful new home on their “bush”. property.
After a very comfortable stay with Mike & Anne we had to go north to Queensland in order to register the Truck and Trailer. We did it in QLD in order to save about $2800 and since we are “International” travelers with no fixed address it doesn’t make any difference as to where we actually did the registration. Next it was on to visit old friends in Brisbane QLD — John & Desma Leach — Merrilyn & Desma were flat mates when I met her and John ended up being my “Best Man” in our wedding. Several nights of good eating and good wine were enjoyed by all. John & Desma have also created a very nice flora and fauna sanctuary on their property and actively work to preserve their natural setting.
Time to start some serious sight seeing of the tropical mountain variety. The Natural Bridge was a highlight and easy walk to get there. We also did a 7.5 Km hike to visit some Aboriginal cave dwellings in Lamington National Forest. Cliff’s hips and foot all held up well on the trek, but when Merrilyn suggested a 22 Km trek for the next day — they protested. Another highlight was a visit to O’Rielly’s peak and a tree top walk via a suspended cable walkway at treetop heights. The road to O’Reilly’s was a 20 minute endurance of steep tight turns all on a one lane road and I am driving a full size US pick up truck, seems like it is 50% larger than any Australian vehicles we encounter.
Beaudesert to Rosebank We couldn’t find any RV park in Lismore on our return trip, so we decided to “Free Camp” and pulled the RV into a quarry near Mike Hill’s place for the next five days. What a fortunate decision! The stars were so bright at night — with no moon — you could almost read a paper by them. The birds were our natural alarm clock and Koala Bears were in the tree tops.