Beth and Mark's Gap Year 2014: In sickness and in health - 5th March

We left the safe haven of South West Rocks, and on the advice of a couple of old ladies in the caravan park, we headed for Armidale via the “Waterfall Way”, which as the name suggests is famed for the waterfalls along the route. We made sure that we stopped for a look and a wander at each of the major falls and we also took the opportunity to take a superb walk (10 km) through the Dorrigo Rainforest and enjoyed the lunch and free Wi-Fi on offer at the café.

Our multi-stop strategy of course meant that there was no way we were going to make it to Armidale in time to secure a site, so instead we decided to stay the night at a free camping site on the Little Styx River just outside the entrance to New England National Park and about 100k from Armidale. We expected, given the dearth of facilities (one especially gruesome pit toilet) that we would have the site to ourselves, but it turns out that because caravans these days are self-contained with respect to conveniences places like this are well frequented, and we shared the little spot with two large caravans and another camper trailer (an Ultimate like ours). Whilst the stay was not exactly unpleasant, it wasn’t pleasant either. Next morning we decided to poke our heads into New England National Park just for a look, and guess what we found? A beautiful little camping ground with nice clean toilets, barbeques and even showers (albeit cold). Oh well,next time we will know where to go. Needless to say we took a walk whilst we were there, and again it was absolutely gorgeous.

Again we moved slowly towards Armidale via waterfall stopovers, which were becoming progressively less blessed with water the further inland we travelled. By Armidale, all the waterfalls had dried up (courtesy of the current drought conditions), but we went and looked nonetheless and imagined the water flowing freely over the rocks. In typical style, despite the scarcity of water in the waterways, we managed to get caught in a thunderstorm during one of our walks – enough to soak us, but not enough for the waterfalls to spring to life. Just one night in Armidale before we moved on to Yuraygir National Park back on the coast. On the way to Yuraygir we called into Cathedral Rock National Park and had a wonderful time walking to and then clambering to the top of the large rocky outcrop which gives the park its name. To paraphrase Ratty, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about on rocks. We had great fun.

We have been taking note during our travels of the places we have only sampled and would like to experience more fully on a return visit. The list is getting quite long and has just had the New England and Oxley Wild Rivers National Parks added. I think by the time we return home we will have 10 years of travel plans in place.

We visited Yuraygir because Beth had read about and become interested in a series of linked coastal walks which it had to offer. The fact that we had only one full day there and that these walks totalled more than 100 km had me worried. Luckily for me Beth seemed satisfied with concentrating on only one small section called the Angourie walk which I understood to cover about 12 km of beach and littoral rainforest, unluckily for me a mixture of grossly understated distances on our maps and someone's desire to go just a little bit further to find the view that we were sure was just around the corner meant that we staggered back into our camp about 20km later. Even worse, my promised reward of coffee and cake at the little town around the corner evaporated when we discovered that said town was seemingly not large enough to support an establishment serving such refreshments, so we returned our weary selves to the trailer for herbal tea and dry biscuits. Despite miscalculations and coffee disappointments, Yuraygir was nice and the weather was kind to us, so I should not complain.

From the wilds of Yuraygir we moved on to the wilds of Byron Bay. After setting up our camp at the caravan park we decided to take a walk into town, and I must say that my first impression was that this town was not quite the wild and happening place that it was made out to be, and I commented to Beth that the people I was observing were not the Bohemians I was expecting, but normal dorky folk like myself. Needless to say I should have kept my observations to myself, because the closer we got to the town centre the more obvious it became that this town is just what it is made out to be. There were old hippies, young hippies, tattoos, piercings, artistic looking folk, loud music, vendors peddling all sorts of things, suspicious looking cigarettes and wall to wall European back packers. Vibrant is a good word to describe Byron Bay, and despite the crowd being very different to ourselves, this was a nice bustle to be making our way through, and we resolved to return to the town centre the next day after our walk to sit and drink coffee and watch a different world go by.

We will have to stop promising ourselves coffee, because it seems inevitably to lead to disappointment. As the next day dawned, I felt a little bit seedy but decided that it was probably just the humid weather and a walk would sort things out. So we set out for the lighthouse, and by the time we reached it my seediness had developed somewhat in a bad direction, so we slowly made our way back to camp where I laid down and did not get back up for 24 hours, by which time it was time to pack up and move on. Fortunately Beth remained OK whilst I was sick, but as soon as I had recovered it was Beth’s turn and she was laid low for a couple of days with the same bug.

Whilst we were travelling up the coast we learnt (via the Tom Tom drums) that friends of ours were holidaying on the Gold Coast, so we determined to modify our plans slightly to spend a few days catching up with them. As it turns out this was a great decision, because as well as spending time with friends (which was really pleasant), it also gave us the opportunity to rest up and recuperate from our sickness (I.e. very little walking). Our final evening on the Gold Coast was spent celebrating our friend’s 50th birthday at a nice seafood restaurant, which after a couple of months of simple healthy eating was quite an indulgent and novel experience for which our stomachs did not really thank us the next day.

We are now at Binna Burra in the Lamington National Park (which is in the Gold Coast hinterland) where we are trying to catch up on the walking days lost to illness, and there is probably no better place in the world to do this. There are 100s of kilometres of walking tracks through beautiful rainforest and we have traversed about 50km of them in the last 2 days. Tomorrow we head across to Green Mountain on the other side of Lamington NP to continue catching up.

After almost a week in the Gold Coast rat race, it is nice to be again out amongst the spiders and snakes again. Beth is up to her old tricks, tromping around snakes so that they are in a state of excitement by the time I reach them. This time she made a little black snake so angry that its head was raised ready to strike after she passed. I chose not to pass whilst it was in this state and waited (about 10 minutes!!) until it had settled down and slithered slowly away. We have also encountered the rare blue lamington crayfish ( sounds a bit like w weird cake doesn't it), various lizards, many birds,and of course spiders, but to Beth’s disgust, we have not yet sighted an Albert Lyrebird.

We are enjoying our travels and each other’s company (well I am anyway), but we do miss family and friends and also the intellectual stimulation which the workplace provides, and although we haven’t consciously set out to do so, we seem to be developing something of a routine which ensures that we keep in touch, generally through the social media and technologies at our disposal. We are also trying hard to be a little more gregarious than happens naturally for us in an effort to spark intelligent conversation, and this means engaging more with our fellow campers. Although often our conversations are somewhat banal, occasionally we do encounter interesting people with interesting things to say. In particular, some of our chats with European (mainly German) tourists have been quite rewarding.

Just yesterday we made 2 new sets of friends. Our closest neighbours in the camp ground are a young Austrian couple who are looking to stay and work in Australia for a couple of years and I thoroughly enjoyed talking to them about their aspirations and picking their brains about a walk that we plan to do in Austria later this year. My enjoyment of their company was greatly enhanced by the large piece of cake they had baked in the camp oven and provided to accompany the chat.

Beth's new friend was a little different. We had just returned from a big walk and Beth must have been peckish because she entrusted me with ordering the coffee and cake (which meant that there would be a piece of cake each rather than just one to share). When I returned to our table, my place had been taken by an older gentleman, with whom Beth was engaged in earnest conversation. My immediate impression was that this was a cad hitting on my wife, and I was torn between feelings of indignation and pride that Beth still had some pulling power. I think my first impression was accurate, but Beth assures me that his sole intention was to market a map that he had produced. I think that was his fallback position when I arrived on the scene. Anyway, the truly remarkable thing about this man was that either he was having a lot of fun at our expense or he had been transported from another time (remember Catweazle?). Whilst discussing the map which he had evidently produced and was looking to market, our conversation turned to Google and smart phones whereupon he looked bemused and asked what was this magical thing of which we spoke. Beth provided a demonstration, which seemed to amaze him, so she let him play with the phone and for the next half hour he was like child with a new rattle, after which he bemoaned the fact that if things like this existed, how was he going to sell his map. We are encountering some interesting people.