Our Road trip journey continues along Australias NSW Coast line.
The next day we drove from Narooma onto the next town, Batemans Bay. We found a YHA caravan site which we managed to book for a few days. A small anonymous donation to the ‘Help your child abroad’ foundation helped us out massively. Olly managed to book was a small caravan in the YHA which he saw advertised as a ‘private room’. To be honest we were just happy to be inside again. We spent a few days there, blogging and showering in hot water and downloading more Netflix.
Couch Surfing time!
Olly re-downloaded the Couch Surfer App and began to look for our next place to stay. We found a local guy called Brad who was willing to take us in for a few days. We wanted to stay with locals for a few reasons. One was to save money and the other was to get more information about the areas we were in. The towns we were stopping in along this road trip we have never heard of. Local information was crucial to use exploring these places.
Me and Olly arrived at Brads house and immediately we were made to feel right at home. He introduced us to his 3 children and showed us to our room. A DOUBLE BED, INDOORS! Clearly we were appreciating the small things in life once again. We attempted to buy some dinner but Brad was having none of it. He insisted that he would cook us dinner and it was delicious.
Brad also made his own rum which is my favourite drink of all time, was this heaven? Unlimited STRONG rum! Olly and I chilled in the living room, chatting to him and his kids, watching TV which was really nice. Looking at each other and realised how nice it was to just sit in front of the TV chatting. We haven’t done this in months and it just felt so nice and homely. We were instantly overwhelmed with Brad opening his home up to us. He made us feel extremely comfortable after only a few hours.
The next day we headed to a beach Brad had reccomended called Pebbly Beach which had lots of friendly kangaroos. When we got there, there were none. Kangaroos are normally spotted at dawn and dusk, so we decided to go for a walk until then. We checked our maps and saw a route along the coast line and headed straight for it.
This is the last time I am letting Olly plan the whole day. He didn’t tell me the hike was about 3 hours long. Well, it was meant to take an hour and a half but we stopped to take photos every chance we got. As we were under the trees we couldn’t really see the weather. We either kept getting cold at the edge of the cliffs and then freezing closer to the beaches.
Heading out in Batemans Bay
We made it to Snake Beach which was lovely but the weather started to take a turn for the worst. It started to rain so we tried to run back to the entrance. The track wasn’t ideal and we kept slipping over. We were so focused on getting back to the car and so tired we forgot all about the kangaroos and jumped back into the car to head back to Brads house.
That evening Brad cooked us dinner again which was beautiful. We chatted all night long about growing up in Australia and discussing the differences between our childhood and his. After a few Rums we headed to bed as I was tipsy as hell. Not drinking anything for a while really does take its toll on your tolerance for alcohol.
We said goodbye to Brad and headed onto Lake Tabourie caravan park. This accommodation seemed too good to be true. It started off at $22 a night for us to camp and then reduced everyday we stayed. In the end we were paying $7 a day to stay here. This place was huge! It had lots of camping kitchens and stoves, mini golf, tennis courts, swimming pool and backed onto the beach. This place seemed like heaven! We had some time to kill so we planned to stay here for a few days. We have learnt to make the most of our surrounding.
The first day we sat in the outdoor kitchen which had a TV, cooking our dinner over the stove. This was still pretty cold but they did have inside toilets and hot showers so we weren’t complaining. Most nights we spent in the car, in bed watching Netflix, trying to stay warm!
Over the next few days we worked out, running around the whole campsite. We explored the beach at sunset and managed to get some great photos. Date night also took place which consisted of three rounds of mini golf. It wasn’t until our 4th day here we realised we had been walking past a room we didn’t notice. Olly had a look in and he found an indoor kitchen filled with an oven, kettles, tv, toasters, etc. We felt like the biggest idiots ever as we had been freezing our arses off for days! This made life a lot easier especially making dinner. After copious about of Tea and biscuits in the evenings we were a lot more comfortable getting into bed slightly warmer.
The day we were leaving Lake Tabourie the funniest thing happened to me and Olly so far of our travels. We somehow managed to adopt hundreds of children that didn’t understand boundaries, the children being rainbow lorikeets. They landing on my head and arms thinking I had food due to dropping crumbs of bread on the floor. They then started to fight one another while they were on my arm! A photo says a 1000 words… this one definitely does!
Couch Surfing take 2!
Jervis Bay was our next location. Olly had once again struck gold and hooked us up with another Couch Surfer near Basin View in Jervis Bay. Tom was our host who was a 29 year old teacher who had once travelled him self in Europe. Olly and I arrived at his place and again were blown away with his hospitality. He invited us that night to the pub with his friends to watch the State Of Origins Game. Apparently it was a big event, we knew nothing about. I am sure our 100 questions about the game didn’t help his evening, but they were all very nice explaining the rules to us! Tom and his friends gave us some great places to check out over the next few days.
The next day we woke up early and headed out, exploring every place they had told us about. We walked for a few hours when we arrived at Gosangs Tunnel. Tom had told us that we needed to go here as we could get some cool photos but had never been himself. We arrived and realised we had to crawl through a small tunnel which had naturally been carved out through the rock. If I could see what was on the other side I wouldn’t have done this, as when we got to the other side it was a sheer drop into the sea. Extremely dangerous but seriously worth it! The view was amazing and we even managed to get the drone up to capture this amazing place we had stumbled upon.
The light was quickly fading so we headed back to the car which was still a fair walk. Tom had also recommended we checked out Hyams Beach due to it being the whitest sand in the world. We jumped back in the car and headed around to the other side of the bay which was a good 45 minute drive. We had also been told by Toms friend that the houses along the beach front are to die for too it being a very affluent area. Olly and I arrived just before sunset and grabbed a coffee from the small cafe on the beach front. Coffee in one hand and cameras in the other we took the short walk along the beach and we can confirm, It defiantly is the whitest sand we have ever seen!
We headed back to Toms place and made ourselves at home by making spaghetti carbonara whilst he was out at a boxing class. Tom returned home a few hours later and we spent the rest of the evening chatting and watching videos of him on his local radio station. We forgot to mention Tom is in a band and a great guitarist and singer. We said good night and had an early night due to getting up early the next day for our next adventure.
Would we recommend Couch surfing?
Couch Surfing is something we 100% would recommend. It is so warming to know there are nice people out there willing to help you out especially when your half a world a way from home. It’s an extremely nice feeling, especially to feel at home in someone else house after months of hostels. Not only was this experience welcoming, it gave us lots of things to do and places to explore which we would not have known about.
Going to a strangers house can be scary and dangerous, but if there is more than 1 of you then please consider it! We had never done it before and wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was so much fun and interesting. If that isn’t what travelling is about, trying something new and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone then I don’t know what is!
Our next drive is to Canberra to get the car sorted. Once that is fixed we head to the Snowy Mountains to start our jobs in a private members Chalet! It can’t get much colder than camping in the car, can it?
