We told them stories from the road, and it was hard to believe we'd only been traveling for 18 days. The beginning of the trip felt like it was years ago. Because we showed up today happy and well rested, it was funny to recount how difficult the first days of the trip were.
When we left Sydney, we headed straight back to Port Stephens, not far from Shoal Bay, the town we fell in love with back in October. We set up camp and paddled and spent time at the beach. We drove out on the sand dunes to Samarai Beach, a very beautiful and secluded spot, and had a great day laying in the sun and swimming. On the drive back, the car got completely stuck in the sand dunes. Realizing how stuck we were was upsetting. Lucky enough, we were far enough off the beach that we didn't need to worry about the tide coming in. We tried to dig the car out. I put my foot on the accelerator and Glen pushed the car. Then Glen put his foot in the accelerator and I pushed the car. Finally, Glen looked at me and said "Oh, Jenny, we're in trouble." We stood on top of a sand dune and called NRMA (Australian Triple A). They said they don't come to the sand. We called a towing company that does come to sand. They said they'd come in an hour and a half and it would cost $450.
Suddenly, two men appeared in a pick up truck and towed us right out. They were so friendly and nice, we thanked them profusely and drove into town, canceled the $450 tow and planned out the next leg of our trip, to a town called Forster.
The following night we packed up for an early departure the next day. We glanced at our phones only to see in every Australian news outlet that there had been a shark attack on a surfer. In Forster. We decided to pass Forster and head farther north.
As we drove out of Port Stephens the following morning, the 'Check Engine' light in the car came on. We drove the car to Beuladelah, about 75 kilometres to the north and as we pulled into town, we realised that at low speeds, the car was shaking. We googled the nearest Toyota dealership which happened to be in Forster. The car was fine at high speeds, so we drove it into Forster where the Toyota dealership was happy to take a look.
While we waited, we ate a kilo of shrimp at a picnic table. We walked on the beach. Not all the beaches were open due to the shark attack. But this particular beach was open...but for obvious reasons, we were the only people on it. It was so hot out. We couldn't help it....we jumped in the water....really fast. We didn't get eaten by a shark.
We were thrilled to pick up the car and even more thrilled to learn it was a simple, seventy five dollar fix.
So we continued up north, eventually landing in the beautiful town of Crescent Head, in a campsite on the water. We swam and paddled and walked on the beach. We had a glass of wine and saw some big clouds building behind us. We could see a big storm was coming, so we got some cheese and crackers ready and figured we'd have a little party in the tent.
The wind started blowing. I got in the tent and Glen came in too. Suddenly, a pole broke. Then another....the back side of the tent collapsed. I ran into the car. (I'm not very brave). Glen loaded everything from the tent into the car and took the tent down but secured it to the ground. We googled hotels in Crescent Head and found a room for $99.
We drove into town and checked into the room. The room was situated so it was not near the road or parking lot, so we had to run our things quite a distance, in the rain.
Finally we were settled in. We were wet. All of our stuff was muddy. It was still pouring outside. We never got to eat. For the first time since we'd arrived in Australia, we were both completely defeated. We talked about the move we'd made, and even questioned why we did it. We said this may have been have a big mistake and we wondered, where do we go from here? Not just on this road trip, but in life in general.
We barely slept and woke up early. The day was beautiful. We drove back to the campground. People everywhere were re-building their campsites. Ours was back up by 930am. We made friends with our neighbors. We spent the next few days swimming, paddling and surfing before continuing north to Yamba, then even farther north to the Gold Coast and then back down the coast to beautiful Nambucca Heads.
As you can probably guess, as we talked to Gary, Megan and Jackson we loved telling them the stories from the road. The more trouble we were in, the more fun it was to talk about. I suppose it's natural for us to question what we've done sometimes. But at the end of the day, I wouldn't trade this for anything.
As you can probably guess, as we talked to Gary, Megan and Jackson we loved telling them the stories from the road. The more trouble we were in, the more fun it was to talk about. I suppose it's natural for us to question what we've done sometimes. But at the end of the day, I wouldn't trade this for anything.
At this moment in time we probably should've been tying more ropes off, rather than taking photos in front of the storm clouds that would take the tent down about ten minutes later.
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