East Coast Australia Road Trip, Part I

On the 16th of April we started our road trip on the east coast of Australia. We rented a campervan from Jucy an set of from Sydney with the plan to reach Cairns on May 9th. That means 24 days living in a car. But what is a campervan exactly? Well, it's a van that's been converted into a mini caravan. It has a small kitchen behind and then the middle part of the car can be converted into a surprisingly comfortable bed. Unfortunately we forgot to take a picture of the inside, but you may use your imagination.

Our first stop was the Blue Mountains just outside Sydney. We spent two nights in the national park exploring the nature and admiring the stunning landscapes. The Blue Mountains is actually a national park the size of Belgium. The blue colour that can be seen over the valleys is caused by all the eucalyptus trees that grow in the area. And since it's the end of autumn in Australia, even some trees had stunning autumn colours.

Next stop was the Hunter Valley wine district north of Sydney where we tasted some very good wines, especially at the Hungerford Hill winery. The landscape was beautiful too!

After that we headed up following the coast to Port Stephens. Here we actually spotted some dolphins swimming up close to the beach (not in the picture). Not far from here we also visited Tilligerry Habitat - a wildlife rescue center - and here at the nearby park we saw a very cute koala sleeping in a tree. She had been rescued earlier but was set free back into the wild, but she still sometimes liked to hang out close to Tilligerry.

Then we had a little bit longer drive ahead of us since we were heading to Byron Bay next. On our way there we stopped at a very nice beach, though, called Urunga. Here they had a long boardwalk out to the sea and to the outer beach where we had the sand all for ourselves. Very beautiful spot!

In Byron bay we walked through a beautiful natural park up to the landmark: the lighthouse. From here (and elsewhere along the coast) you can spot humpback whales during the winter months, but we were a little bit early for that. Instead we spotted a cute wallaby (kangaroo) with a baby in her pocket!