Camping Holiday, NSW North Coast, May 2005

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Just a little bit of background: After a year of crazy travelling and all the dislocation and stress this entails plus a gruelling work load whenever at home, I was really ready for a break. This as also shortly after I had broken up with Danielle, and also after a huge argument with my father. So, yeah - I needed a break. The plan was simply to get away from it all and head up the northcoast with nothing but my backpack, my billy, the NSW coast and a camera. No phone, no laptop. 'Off the grid' as my friend Lynda loves to say. Reconnect with the land, nature, get grounded and... relax. It worked. This was an absoloutely amazing time for me and really did reconnect my soul with the spirit of this 'great southern land'.

Hope you enjoy.




Day 1 Sunday 1st May 2005

Alarm for 5:40am – ugh!

Still have to hit snooze twice before lurching into action – shower, quick coffee. House slumbers and then in the last 20 mins before I leave I open my window and see…

Beautiful dawn – over the eastern suburbs – layers of lightening sky over still dark and sodium lit streets and then, just faintly, three enormous fingers of light, coming from still below the horizon, beaming into the sky, like beacons – amazing.



A sign? Hmmm. I’ll last three days? Heh heh…

Call cab to central, jump out on Chalmers and quickly cash up at ATM with $100. Don’t want to carry anymore and as long as I can EFTPOS my train ticket (pre-booked but not yet paid for) – I’ll be right for a few days.

Pick up ticket, pay and then to platform. 6:50am – 20 minutes to spare. Buy a weekend Herald and then – last ciggie.

Then I’m on the XPT to Casino (no longer Byron since they cancelled the service…) and – boy this train is slow. No wonder it takes 5 ½ hours to get to Taree – most of the klanking along windy, twisting tracks, on flat land, at about 60-80 kmh. Harrumph.

The accents around me are already changing – vowels are longer, more ‘strine’. The man behind me is explaining to hat he’s going to try and find his son – missing for two days. A glimpse into a human drama – he makes a phone call ‘I haven’t got much credit – tell mark to turn his phone on’. Later he announces – they’ve found him – and have caught the other guy. Hmmmm. Interesting.

Sleep – then.

Taree. I decided to train as far as Taree because from my memories of driving up the coast, it was always at Taree was when the temperature seemed noticeably warmer. Here the golden north coast of NSW begins proper.

Step 1 accomplished – now I’m officially ‘up the coast’. No phone. No laptop – off the grid. On my own. And must rely on nothing but my wits, determination and what I carry in my pack to survive the next week.

Coooooool!!!!

Except the pack is HEAVY! Est 25-30 kg and my billy, bought from the little old weird Jewish folks at that disposals store down on Pitt St and now dangling from the bottom of my pack already has it’s handle bent. Serves me right for wanting to go ‘Old-school’ and forgo all the fancy shmancy hi-tech camping gear in favour of the the classic Aussie tin billy. Harrumph.

So.

Examine the maps on the wall of the Taree train station – right. Right I see I need to go this way to hit the main drag and over there, and I can see the sign of the local Bi-Lo towering above the roofs of this little town.

So head to the Bi-Lo for final supplies – get everything on my list: · Candles · Flat Packed Tuna · Bread (Lebanese. Again – flat!) · Insect repellent · Sunscreen

Repack on a table in the little mall and then down the road to the $2 shop for my final requirements – an enamel plate and cup.

Excellent – but now – I’m hungry – oh for heavens sake! That’s right – it’s 1:00pm – lunchtime. Find a little café open on the main drag (it’s Sunday so much of the town is closed and I want to avoid Burger King, McDonalds, Pizza Hut and the like) and get myself a ham and salad roll and a coffee. Hilarious shop manager gossipping with the locals – much laughter and relaxed banter – shutting up for the day – in the end $5.00. Nice.

Get directions to the freeway and start walking – phew! Hard work. After about 2k I ask again and get a horrified look from three young local guys ‘the freeway? That’s miles – out past the airport and then past X and Y.’ Ah. Bugger. So – start hitching. Walk another K or so with my thumb out and then stop and set up my hitching spot. Hmmmm. Not so good. All local traffic no guarantees any-one’s going to the edge of town. Piss. But still, after about 20 mins a car stops (excellent – my ‘eye-contact through the windshield’ trick seems to work). Nice Guy – drives me to the edge of town and to just before the turn-off to the freeway before turning back – nice. Thanks.

Then wait.

And now it feels like the real thing.

It’s hot or warm – depending on the cloud cover. And here I am standing in the middle of nowhere with my pack and my camera – by the side of the road – waiting. And it’s lovely.



I think:

The joy of hitch-hiking is the curious combination of both total Zen and then adventure. Waiting is Zen; you. The road. The Sun. The occasional car passing. Quiet. Stillness. But then there is also the adventure. Where will I be next? Who will pick me up? What stories will they have? Where will the wind take me?

But sometimes it takes a while. An hour goes past. Not a lot of traffic on the turnoff out of Taree onto the freeway – and it’s Sunday. People going home. And off Season. Not many kids. No Combis.

Hmmmm…

Re-arrange my backpack so the billy is clearly visible – appeal to the romantic, the aussie archetype I figure.

Another hour passes. Hmmm… Almost four now. Bugger.

And then finally – a lift. ‘But I’m only going as far as Coopernook’ (what a great name). But just over the bridge there – everyone has to slow down – that’s a good place to get a ride.

Cool.

Then finally onto the great Pacific Highway. So 20k or so north up the road to Coopernook. And yes, just over a little bridge, next to the Hotel/Pub – indeed, a good place to get lifts from.

But. It’s getting late. 4:00pm and I have several more turns (read – drop offs and catching new lifts) to navigate before I reach to Diamond Head – my first (and only real planned) destination.

So. The Coopernook Hotel eh? Well they say they offer accommodation. I wonder how much it is? A Huge 1920’s built quasi-deco place. Indeed the only building in what I gather constitutes Coopernook.



Go in through the huge front doors and then – turn right into the main bar. 15 locals or so, crappy fake wood panelling and harsh overhead fluorescent lighting. Hardly promising, but, pausing to drop some change into the volunteer figrefighter donation helmet on the bar, enquire: ‘How much for a single room’. Husband and wife team behind the bar. Husband steps back and mumbles something – far from friendly. But wife smiles warmly and after some quick deliberation with hubbby - $20 per night.

Fine. Get a key and am shown to the room – a few bunks in a small room, but with a TV and bathroom is immediately opposite room in hallway and on the other side of the room, access to a HUGE old wooden veranda. I am assured that the room is mine for the night. Seems likely – doesn’t look like they have all that many people staying.

Right – back downstairs to bar and ‘let’s have a beer’ and start talking to the locals. Lovely lot. Leaning on the bar and lounging around the Formica tables - Classic Australian archetypes – Friendly, warm, laconic, funny, and... racist beyond belief.



Ah the true blue Ozzie. Meet Jill, Jimmy and a few others. A few beers, a dodgy counter meal (early – it’s only 6:00pm but I am HUNGRY!) and then by 8:00pm I’m in bed. And hey – good thing I stopped here – night is punctuated by thundering showers. Hmmmm… Hopefully the forecasts are correct and it will all clear up by tomorrow. Goodnight. From the Coopernook hotel.

Damn – shouldn’t have watched Alley McBeal on Late night TV last night. That red-haired, freckled spunk lawyer is just a little too close for comfort. Hmmm. Sad Again.

continue to day two

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