bigtrip.com.au

day two-hundred-and-two of the Big Trip
Distance traveled: 11363 kms, 280058 on new Odometer
Fuel used: 1232 litres unleaded, 166 diesel

After a 3 month hiatus in Tamworth getting a 4-wheel-drive vehicle set up (1995 troop carrier with crazy pop-top conversion, solar panels permenantly attached to the roof, one large seat-and-storage steel box bolted to the interior, another large steel storaage container also bracing our fridge to the side) and getting an ecommerce website created for a client (launching soon), we’re finally on the road again.

The panel van is out as we’re heading North into territory that will require a 4 wheel drive to get us to all the interesting spots – and to get us out again. The panno clocked up 10670kms with a final odometer reading of 243153. In our initial travels we used of 1232 litres of unleaded petrol, which we’ll be carbon-neutralising in the future… and from now on we’ll be counting up all the litres of diesel instead.

We’ve been on the road since Mother’s Day, taking in the Big Bowl in both Armidale and Lake Cathie, and inbetween the Big Chook in Moonbi and the Big Eight Ball in Port Macquarie. Big Things aside we can highly recommend Apsley Falls outside of Walcha – over the millennia the granite walls have be worn away to be wider at the bottom than the top all through the gorge, and the effect is quite dizzying – not so much that the walls are falling in on you, but that you are falling backwards yourself. Quite a disconcerting experience when you’re hundreds of feet up on a small wooden walkway jutting out into the void!

The trip along the Oxley Highway from Armidale to Port Macquarie isn’t to be recommended for those with hangovers or small travel-sick children (we only had the former) as the road winds and twists constantly around the mountains of the great dividing range – and while the view is spectacular, the constant motion is nauseating after an hour or so. On the way though you can stop off at Wauchope and step back in time to the 1880s at Timbertown – a town within a town – a small village in the woods with narrow dirt roads and rows of wooden buildings with boarded pavement attached, very wild-west in feel. Everyone working there (in the blacksmiths, the wood turners, the wood mill, the train station, the newsagents) is in period dress and acts accordingly, although they still charge 2009 prices. It’s pretty quiet there in the week, but I imagine weekends or better yet school holidays brings a greater number of townsfolk out in character and a hustle and bustle to the muddy streets. If for nothing else its worth it just to ride the steam train around town.

In the last few days we’ve been to the Trail Bay Jail at South West Rocks: not just your average australian convict jail, this grim building housed hundreds of Australian Citizens who happened to be first-generation immigrants from Germany, jailed purely for no crime other than their place of birth… World War One was underway and Australia was taking no chances. Unsurprisingly the jail was not required during World War Two as the government saw fit to deport all the prisoners back to Germany upon the end of the war, as if they were not secret dissidents when they were locked up, they certainly would have been by the time they were released.

Kempsey and bought ourselves some decent hats at last – Akubras of course, seeing as the factory is in Kempsey, but like a couple of nerds we ended up getting the same hat, same colour. Will this lead to matching raincoats, jeans and tracksuits into old age? I hope not…

We’re currently in Scott’s Head, about to go further up the coast to Coffs Harbour to get a caravan place to attach a large water tank to the underside of our vehicle before going anywhere too remote – a quiet spot with a good beach, lots of campers but a very relaxed atmosphere.