Day 56

Monday 27^th December 2010

We had been warned that the whole of Sydney would be hitting the road and heading up the coast for the Summer holidays today so we were up and out in an attempt to beat the traffic – knocking on the doors of Hertz at 7.30am!

We were given a brand new Toyota Corrolla. We had our doubts about this as the car was automatic. We’d booked a manual car but there were none ‘in stock’ so it was automatic and beat the traffic or wait for a manual car to be returned. Given that we’d got up so early it seemed stupid to lose our advantage over the rest of Sydney so we took the automatic, threw in the luggage and hit the road. ROAD TRIP!!!!!!!

It was a public holiday so there was no morning rush hour, the streets of Sydney were deserted. Congratulating each other on our ability to beat the rush we crossed the Harbour bridge and sailed out of Sydney, heading North on the Pacific Highway.

This was a deserted, winding and tortuous road with hairpin bends and a disproportionate number of cyclists to avoid. Knowing we had about 800km to cover today we were worried quite how long this would take when we realised that we were following exactly the same route as the freeway which was a straight road with 3 lanes and a much more respectable speed limit of 110kmph – so we joined it! From there it was plain sailing, or rather driving, up to Newcastle where the freeway ends and we had to rejoin the Pacific Highway. Interestingly we could turn off here to both Newcastle AND Cardiff. The Aussies clearly couldn’t be bothered coming up with their own place names as we also passed Gloucester and Stroud. Or when they had to come up with a place name they could at a push all be it very unimaginative yet descriptive names – 12 mile hill, 9 mile beach, 8 mile creek – it seems that here size does matter! Bobbin Heads and Bald Knob Cove were amongst our favourites.

All was going well until we reached BulaDelah where we now know the road goes down to one lane – I mean this is THE road North around the coast which is the most populated part of Australia and they have a single lane ‘A’ road to get there – what are these people thinking?! We spent a couple of hours snarled up in traffic here with the mass exodus from Sydney that we had been promised. One kid clearly realised he had faster modes of transport at his disposal as he sailed past us on his skate board!

We’d planned a rest stop for lunch with Sheridan (who we appear to be following across the planet) and her bloke Nick at his family’s beach house at Blackhead beach. She had sensibly flown up the day before! We arrived some two hours later than scheduled to a warm welcome lunch of Xmas left overs – turkey and ham sandwiches! We had a quick trip to check out the beach before it was time to hit the road again (after a final, final, final goodbye with Sheridan – we promise not to follow you anymore!)

We had another 500km or so to cover so reckoned we’d make it to Byron for about 7.00pm. How wrong were we! What with the combination of yet more holiday traffic, endless roadworks (with nobody bloody working on the road!) and stupidly low speed limits we had over another 6 hours driving to go.

As we approached our final destination in the dark the rains began to fall – typical!!! There’s nothing I enjoy more than driving in the dark and rain when you’ve been in a car for 12 HOURS. Franky’s belly was rumbling and we’d seen a sign for KFC at Ballina, the last town before Byron Bay so decided to stop for some grub – it was 8.30pm after all!!! I drove the length of the high street looking for the cheeky Colonel… and then was made to turn around and go back and look again – he REALLY, REALLY wanted KFC!!! But all to no avail. There was a McDonalds but after yesterdays vomiting that wasn’t satisfactory so it was two very grumpy, tired and still hungry road trippers who eventually rocked up in the party town that is Byron bay at 9.00pm.

When booking accommodation we’d not been able to find much in our budget here so we were hostelling for the next 6 nights. We (eventually) found Nomads and checked in….. to what can only be described as some kind of frat’ house. Music pumping out along the corridors and drunken kids everywhere. We felt like the parents had arrived. Too tired to really take all this in we found our private ‘double’ room. This was a double bottom bunk with a single bunk over the top – not really what we had in mind for the honeymoon! We threw the bags down and headed out for some grub. I was firmly of the opinion that places are never as bad as they seem when you’ve had a good meal and a good night’s sleep and that it would all be OK. Food sorted we headed back for that good night’s sleep.

Franky clambered over me, cracked his head on the upper bunk and informed me that I could get up to do the lights. Too tired to protest I obliged and dropped off into the land of slumber…… but not for long….. as some bright (and rather pissed) spark thought it would be hilarious to break the glass on the fire alarm. Vaguely reminiscent of life in halls in first year I groaned and got up. Looking out of the window there was a full scale fight going on in the street (what type of place is this?!) so I left the room to use the bathroom and to see if we needed to evacuate – on finding a girl in the shower and the corridors still full of drunken kids I assumed that evacuation was unnecessary and headed back to bed. When the fire alarms were eventually silenced at 2am some lad took up the mantle by running the corridors shouting ‘fire alarm’ and knocking on everyone’s doors – what a joker!!!

We fell back into an uneasy sleep only to be woken at 8am by…. you guessed it – the fire alarm! it was s bit like I imagine a wake up siren would be in the army. Franky smiled at me through gritted teeth and said, ‘Well we can’t stay here another night’…..