1995/11 Australia trip - The Entrance |
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We knew we were in trouble Friday morning when the taxi driver, an Arab I think, asked us where the street was and handed us the map to show him where to go. We’d found the right street name but in the wrong suburb, and number 41 turned out to be a fire station! Every suburb is on some bay or other, so they all have a Bay Street. Rather like trying to find Lake Avenue in Minnesota. Eventually we got it sorted out and found the right place.
NQ Rentals seems to be quite efficient. The manager had everything ready for us, showed us all the bits and pieces built into our Toyota camper, EXX795, and pointed us north, and we were on our way.
This, of course was where the fun started. Sandie hasn’t driven anything but an automatic in 30 years, and I never have. We also had to drive through the centre of Sydney as there’s no freeway or bypass. So, I drove around the block a few times to find out what a foot clutch feels like, and to get used to driving on the left again, and then it was out into the Sydney traffic. Apart from the occasional stall, dramatic changes into the wrong gear, and a few frightened Australians, I didn’t do too badly. I missed the turn to go across the Sydney Harbour bridge, so we ended up going through the tunnel instead, but we never actually got lost.
Once out of the city, it was relatively easy driving, with lots of different scenery to look at: forests where we couldn’t recognize a single tree. I began to notice that one particular car had tucked in behind me and was keeping pace even when I slowed right down for hills. Finally, we had to stop for some breakfast, and I pulled off for a restaurant, missed the entrance, couldn’t find reverse gear, and had to do a loop through a quarry to get back to the road. The car pulled into the quarry behind us! We didn’t know what to expect, but it turned out to be an employee of the NQ company who’d left some of his possessions in the camper, and as he lived up the same road had decided to chase us down and retrieve. He was a little embarrassed when he realised that we’d thought he was some kind of nut stalking us.
We then had to do some shopping to fill up our camper’s fridge as we didn’t expect to be eating in restaurants the whole time. We found this rambling supermarket, quite large but a warren of interconnected rooms, but then had a whale of a time loading up with all the English food that you can’t buy in Minnesota. When we came out we found that a hot day had got even hotter (40 apparently, which is 104 in American).
We were now looking for somewhere to stay, preferably a place where we could plug in our air conditioner. We spotted a crowded caravan park from 
the road and booked our first Aussie camp site in a little place called The Entrance. We said we’d prefer a spot away from the crowd, and were directed to their ocean sites, which they warned us were windy. It was a perfect spot, on the edge of the beach, overlooking miles of surfing beach and sand, listening to the surf crashing.
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The Entrance (3.41) |  |
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So we were able to walk along the beach, watching the kids surf, with enough breeze to keep it cool. The camper is quite well designed, with the dining table collapsing to make a double bed, and two overhead compartments to hold luggage and bedding. Unfortunately, you have to leave luggage on the floor when driving, to hold the cupboard doors closed. Otherwise everything gets sort of mingled. There’s less floor space than our old tent trailer, so the two occupants need to cooperate to do really complicated stuff like getting breakfast into the bowl and not into the bed.
The bugs are different from what we expected. There are, as we were warned, billions of flies, but so far they don’t bite. So you can either ignore them, or at least just do the Aussie salute: that’s a wave across the nose every ten seconds. Repellent seems to work for an hour or so, but most people don’t bother. You brush your face off before speaking (or anytime you open your mouth) and remember to keep your teeth together while drinking tea. There are a few mozzies so far but not enough to make us close the camper door at night.