Camille’s Big Adventure

  It was a big day, I drove out of the national park and parked at the train station, nice and early around 7:30am. getting on the train was actually really easy. You can just swipe your credit card as a bus pass train pass and you just get on the train and swipe it again when you leave. Made it really easy to get where I was going. I got out at downtown. Sydney and I walked over to the botanic gardens, they had a cultivated Wollemi pine, which is the rarest tree in the world I believe. It was really cool to see that, and I really enjoyed all the flowers and just wondering around, seeing the beautiful botanical gardens with the background of the city behind it.   At the tip of the botanic gardens is the Sydney opera house. Enjoyed wandering around outside and looking at the views. Because it was so early I couldn’t get inside, but I’ll leave that for another time. It’s also really interesting to people watch in places like that there was a Disney cruise that just docked in t...

(Excuse some of my typing here on out, I’ve realized how easy voice to text is for recording thoughts but it doesn’t always get things right)  After leaving Paul and Maree’s I worked my way south through Sydney to Royal national Park. Originally I had the intention of taking the train into Sydney for the day, but I got too busy chatting away in the morning that I decided I wouldn’t have time to really enjoy the day there. instead I set up camp at Royal national Park and went for an incredibly gorgeous hike. The views were stunning. It’s really tall cliffs overlooking the bright blue ocean with crashing waves and it was just such an incredible site.   Around sunset I went out to the salt flats. There were a bunch of little crabs on the salt flats and when I sat still for a little while they would come out of their holes and start living. I noticed that the crabs with red tips on their claws were probably female, and they would just come out and forage, but the crabs with purp...

My next stop on my journey was friends of Dean and Jenny‘s Paul and Maree. Dean And Jenny were kind enough to reach out to their friends and and ask if I could stay with them for the night. I’m so fortunate that they said yes and I got to meet them and spend some time in a home and chatting with some local getting great ideas and hearing lots of stories. They live in Woongarrah, a town between the two biggest cities in New South Wales Newcastle in Sydney. They live in a town along the beach, which I stopped at along my way, and was absolutely beautiful. The drive from Armidale,  was through a number of country towns. Once I got to Paul‘s house, he was able to tell me a lot of the history of the land. His parents lived up in Armidale when they were younger going to school. Along the drive were a lot of really interesting small towns. Scone was one a town known for reading of thoroughbred horses. Paul said that this is the biggest area in Australia for breeding through friends wh...

  After the beach, I headed to Armidale.   It’s a small town that was built with the intention of being a state capital when New South Wales was contemplating splitting into North and south. The architecture there is really interesting because of this very traditional English style buildings. Lots of brick, and the town is very much formed on a grid Because the state didn’t split though it never was used as a pylon and is now a university The drive to Armidale was incredibly gorgeous. A portion of the road is known as waterfall way. Along the drive I stopped at many waterfalls for a quick wander. Beautiful views just really really tall waterfalls. They must be a couple hundred yards tall, shockingly tall I’ll have to look that up. Anyways, it was a gorgeous drive and I was really happy to be able to do it. I stopped for pizza from a local bakery, every Friday night. They have Woodfire pizza night. The pizza was incredible. Maybe the best pizza I’ve ever had. The dough was...

  My next stop along my journey was back down the mountains to Yuraygir National Park. It’s about 30 minutes off the highway to the coast, through Fran’s and pastures. The rural country really made it feel much further than it actually was, which was really lovely.   I got to the campsite and set up my tent, it was a bit of a struggle as the wind whipped the tent away from me a number of times. I chastised the wind a bit for its lack of cooperation and in the end we came to an agreement and my tent was set up.  I wandered the beach for a bit which was ripping with large waves, before a light rain started to fall. Even calling it a rain is a bit overkill, it was more a constant but windy misting.  The campsite had a small covered area where I cooked up my dinner and I ended up sitting in my car eating and then I spent a few hours lounged in the back seat working until my computer died.  The rain had not stopped by the time I woke up the next morning, and s...

  Following Brisbane, I decided it was time to head back into the rainforest and the mountains. I went up to Springbrook National Park where I went on a beautiful walk through and under waterfalls and along some beautiful views of the mountains all the way to the Gold Coast. It was a beautiful hike.   Following the hike I decided to camp and headed to the next national park, Lamington national park. No lamingtons unfortunately, but I did have a beautiful little campsite hidden away in the forest. The common areas/kitchen were beautiful and overlooked the valley and I enjoyed my dinner watching the sunset. I did a little work in my tent before my laptop ran out of battery which worked way better than I could have hoped and will be doing it more in the future.  The campground I stayed in, O’Reilleys, is part of a larger eco-resort in the middle of the national park. It has basic campground (where I stayed) but also permanent tents with bunks, a guest house, cabins, real...

I spent the weekend in Brisbane staying with my friend India, who I worked with in New Zealand. She shares a house with her girlfriend and 2 roommates, and they were kinda enough to let me take some space in the office and set up a mattress for me.  This week is her birthday so we started the weekend with a birthday party for her with bottomless mimosas and tacos. The tacos were the best I’ve had here yet, but the bar is pretty low. The fillings were good, non-traditional, but good with options of pork belly, miso eggplant, fried chicken, and tempura mushroom. The tortillas, while corn, were crumbly and dry. The search continues to find a good corn tortilla… but the food and drink were not the point, and the party was absolutely lovely. 15 people showed up, all from different parts of her life. It was really neat getting to meet everyone and chat with a bunch of different friend groups all brought together by her. Everyone was really sweet and wonderful and I really enjoyed spendin...