On The Road pt. IV

The Blue Mountains

Driving through the Blue Mountains was lovely and I found a nice campsite for free. Just after pulling in and eating dinner it started to poor. So I hunkered down and read till dark and just enjoyed the atmosphere before going to bed. In the morning I went to the Information center where the lady was very helpful showing me great places to hike at an easy level. The hikes were beautiful but there were SO MANY STAIRS that my legs tired out quickly. After a long morning of hiking I decided to try out another free campsite down the road. There I met a nice Turkish man.  He lives out of his van, makes his own yogurt, collects rain water for drinking, uses the river to wash and makes his own bread. It sounded very interesting but certainly not the lifestyle for me. 

While setting up camp for the night a huge storm rolled in and I experienced what was probably one of the biggest rainstorms I've been in. The raindrops were the size of large bird droppings and the lightning and thunder seemed to last all night. The rain even seeped into the bottom of my car door a bit and got my sleeping bag wet. Thankfully only a little spot. next day you would have never guessed that there had been a storm and I drove around a bit before heading down the mountain and to my Helpx in Hornsby. 

 

    "Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world."-Gustave Flaubert

In that storm I felt immensely tiny and was very glad that there were others camping nearby to know I wasn't alone in my tinyness. 

On The Road pt. III

    

     Heading west from Coff’s Harbor you start to drive up into the rain forest. The road was absolutely beautiful and a bit scary. As usual for this trip it was a rainy and foggy day and the mountain road was windy. Trees were tight together and the road so windy that on some of the switch backs the road was too narrow for two lanes and they just stop the dividing lane and its up to you to make the corner. 

     

     Then as you continue on further it just becomes one lane again while construction crews are clearing away what appears to be a landslide that had been covering up the whole road. But the scenery is absolutely worth it and your ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ is Dorrigo National Park. I fell in love with this little place and wish I had spent more time there. They have a bridge to nowhere so visitors can look over the tops of the rain forest trees then one can go below for a sort or long walk among the lower part of the rainforest and experience it at a different view. Unfortunately as usual with this trip it started to rain so I cut my stay short and continued on. 

     At Ebon I stopped at a cute little café and had lunch and decided to re-evaluate my course (the burger I had there was amazing after all of the processed food I had been eating).  I had been driving more than planned and stopping less thus I was making better time than planned and had only a couple hour drive left and still had a few days till I needed to be in Sydney. Looking at my Maps book I decided to check out the Grey Gum café and maybe spend the weekend there after a night in another national park near by. This one had a beautiful hike where you could see the way the mountains had formed with some spectacular waterfalls.

 

    Next day was onto grey gum café on putty road. On the map it looked like I would be driving on mountain roads again and as I kept going it just looked like plains. Then I came upon a memorial for truck drivers and as I was thinking about how strange that was I turned a corner and immediately found out why there was a memorial for truck drivers. The road became extremely curvy and there were lots of signs about land slides. The drive was beautiful and I took a short break at an old abandoned truck stop. 

      

     The Grey Gum Café was delicious and I got to talk to the owner as I ate and he made sure that I was comfortable and had everything I needed. He also encouraged me to stay for the music festival that weekend. I was going to but in the morning as I went outside there were so many flies I couldn’t breath and I didn’t want to live in my car for any longer while waiting so back to the maps I went. With a couple of days left on my trip I figured why not do a trip into the Blue Mountains? And off again I went.

 

"A good traveler had no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving." -Lao Tzu 

I had no fixed plans on this trip and my only intent was on arriving in Sydney, I think I did ok though as there really was no rush.