The next chapter of the story and the next chapter of our Australian adventure. After having a bit of a faff in the morning trying to get the last bits and pieces ready to go, we ended up leaving at two in the afternoon. The drives in Australia are long, you would probably already know that, considering how large the country is. I mean, it’s bigger than Europe, and you wouldn’t drive around Europe in one day. We ended up driving six and a half hours to get to Lakes Entrance, where we stopped for our first night. After a very questionable camp area toilet and a broken stove later, our first night did not go according to plan. Nothing that ONE glass of goon and fresh pair of eyes in the morning couldn’t fix.
We couldn’t get out of this camp quick enough, so it was up early and off we went at ten am. Nia and I decided to leave the couple at this point, knowing we would be able to join back up with them in Sydney again later on. So, Lakes Entrance to Kangaroo Valley. This was a much better day. We stopped off at Eden on the way, then Batemans Bay to stock up on some food produce and a new camping stove from ALDI, then we continued to Bendeela Camping site. The sun was just setting when we got to this campground and there were lots of moving shadows in the field. Kangaroos maybe? No. They were small, round like footballs, moving and sniffing the grass as they went. Wombats! Our first time of seeing wombats. Although we saw a koala bear run across us on the Great Ocean Road. This was on a mass scale of Australian wildlife there were probably about thirty in this field that we could see. Very cute looking creatures, a bit like a large fat guinea pig. Give it a little Google if you are unsure.
This place definitely had a lot of wildlife, we were in the outback of Australia now and it was time to see it all. Well, the cute stuff that you wanted to see. Myself and Nia headed over to the campsite loos, walking around these wombats like playing a game of Minecraft, we got to the door. It was dark now so we had our torches at the ready to guide the way. These toilets were ok; when you need to go you need to go, right? Until I heard a scream from the next cubicle along. I don’t know at the time if I even wanted to know. “Leah, Leah, Leah, Leah, Leah, Leah!” Oh god. “What is it?” I of course ask in absolute dread knowing that I just wanted to finish my pee and get the hell out of dodge. Nia had been greeted by an eight-legged friend.
I can deal with a lot of creatures, snakes, cockroaches but the one thing that still to this day is quite terrifying is Australian spiders. Nia and I knew what we were up against. Before we left for Australia in Bali we thought: “hey, why don’t we just Google some Australia spiders and we could get used to seeing the size of them, so if we did see them we wouldn’t have such a big phobia.” It was of course the wrong thing to do, when we ended up scratching ourselves to death in the middle of the night, or not being able to sleep until the bedroom had been searched from top to bottom. Even now while I am writing this, I just got a few itches on my body.
They just aren’t like our UK spiders (unless in the Countryside) but when I was small we had daddy-long-legs. Thin and dainty, not harmful. If ever we did see a big, thick, black spider it would scare the hell out of me. So imagine we were heading to the place where the spiders are now a thousand times the size. If you have spoken to any Aussie about this subject you will always get the same words back “it’s the smallest ones you need to be scared of”. These are the deadliest, but it still doesn’t mean I want to come face to face with a big ol’ thick, gangly one.
Poor Nia, she said it was like being in a horror film where one leg at a time it presented itself showly from the back of the door. A moment where you want to run but also freeze, because if you take your eyes off it for even a second it will be gone and never to be seen again. She was tossing and turning all night, in the morning she said she felt so fidgety thinking they were on her all the time. I know the feeling, and it is not pleasant.
We continued our drive towards Sydney where we decided upon stopping in Campbell Town to have some food and to do some research. Unless you are a homeless person I don’t imagine the city of Sydney would like us to park up and camp in the middle of the Botanical Gardens. We decided on an AirBnB instead. We spent the night at a reserve just outside of the city before heading to our converted campus hotel the next morning.
We spent three nights in Sydney taking in all the sights, which I will get into in another blog on my destinations page. As well as adding in a few extra activities such as a pub crawl starting at one of the party hostels of the city “Scary Canary”. After four bars and multiple drinks later (don’t forget we hadn’t been able to drink without driving the following morning for several days now) it was time to stubble back to the AirBnB.
We are sophisticated as well though. Nia works in wine; she loves wine and is an expert at it. We had to visit Hunter Valley for a wine tour while in Sydney of course. We did this on our last full day in Sydney, before meeting back up with Ellie and Jon again. I say this just so you don’t think we are complete bar crawl junkies. We then all convoyed next to the Blue Mountains.
LEAH HANCOX 