So after leaving Byron bay not knowing where we were going to stop next, we decided to just keep driving for a few hours until we were tired and then we would find somewhere to pull up and sleep for the night. We checked out our camping app and found a little seaside town; Woolgoolga, where we could park up right on the beach. By the time we got there, it was getting dark and it looked overcast. We couldn't really be bothered to cook, so luckily we found a little fish and chip shop, so got a takeaway. We ate our food on the picnic bench overlooking the beach. When we finished our food it started to rain, so we darted into the car again. When it stopped raining the sky was a lovely colour at sunset, although we couldn't actually see the sunset from where we are. There were quite a lot of other cars and campers all parked up for the night, so if any wardens came, we won't be the only ones getting into trouble. We got up early in the morning, hopefully trying to beat the warden to it. The one good thing about this place is that they have indoor showers here, so we took one before we left, a cold one, but still good to have a shower in privacy and not an outdoor one.

Coffs Harbour

When we set off, we still weren't sure where we wanted to stop on the way down to Sydney, so I looked up some travel blogs for places we'd come across along the way and came across a few places that we could stop at, Coffs Harbour, and a place that there were kangaroos right near the beach in the wild. As we haven't seen any yet, we thought we might as well take a stop here for lunch to break up the journey. It's a 20 minute detour from the pacific highway and it's in the area of South west rocks. It was quite miserable weather when we left Byron Bay, but when we arrived at Coffs Harbour, it was nice and sunny. We walked around the marina and there were some cool rocks as sea defences so we walked along by those and turned back towards the car. They had some boot fair type thing going on, so we walked around that for a while then left.

We carried on driving towards South West Rocks and arrived here around lunchtime, it was lovely and sunny here too, perfect. We found a nice spot on the beach, which had picnic areas and grassy patches, so we brought our sandwiches and sat on the grass having our picnic. It was a lovely place to stop for lunch. After lunch we went for a walk around and tried to find the kangaroos, but there weren't any around here. We consulted the blog, and found that this was not the beach the kangaroos were at, they are supposed to be at a beach in Little Bay, a few minutes drive from here. This was a really lovely spot to stop for lunch anyhow.

Kangaroooooos!

We drove to Little Bay and parked up near the beach. We couldn't see any kangaroos when we first got there, so we had a walk around the beach and still couldn't see any. Just when we were going to walk down a little track to try and find some, there were some small kangaroos laying down right in front of us laying in the shade. We'd completely missed them when walking past on the other side. They were hidden under the canopy of the trees. It was so hot in the sun, so I don't blame them for laying in the shade. We walked up further up and saw the sign for the Eastern Grey Kangaroo and then we saw a field further back from the beach. There were loads of kangaroos here, much larger ones. It looked like they were all living in their family groups. The males looked huge in comparison to the rest of them. As we approached from a distance, the male kangaroos looked like they were practicing for a boxing match and were rolling their hands like they were ready to fight. We didn't want to get too close, so just looked at them from a distance. We got in the car and drove out of there. We saw more kangaroos, this time they were just outside someone's front garden. It was a family of the mother, joey and the father. The male kangaroo was so muscular, i've never seen a kangaroo who looks like it's been working out, but this one did. He was huge, so I was glad to be looking at him through the car window. We did stop right by him and the family to take some pictures. It's like meet the neighbours from down under, those kangaroos. At least we've got to see some in the wild now, as i've only seen ones in the zoo up until now.

After our kangaroo experience, we got back in the car and started heading towards Sydney, still unsure as to where we were going to stop next, which would be somewhere to camp overnight. I checked more blogs and found that Port Stephen looked like a good place. I found some campsites around that area and a good one came up in Anna Bay, which is close to Port Stephen. We carried on driving for quite a few more hours until we stopped in a rest area to cook our dinner before it got dark. After that we headed towards Anna Bay and arrived after dark. The campsite was right on the beach, although as it was dark, we couldn't see what the area looked like. We managed to find a spot in the camp site, which happened to be right down by the sand. There are suppose to be sand dunes around here, but we won't know what it looks like until the morning.

No we're not in the Sahara desert, we're in OZ!

In the morning when we got up, we realised that where we'd parked was right on the beach, next to the sand dunes. It's a beautiful area with some cool dunes, although not as good as the ones in Huacachina. There's a brand new block of showers and toilets here, albeit cold showers again, so we got ready and thought we'd have a walk around the area just before we left. While we were walking down to the beach, a big truck containing some camels drove past us. It went and parked up right near where we stayed, so it's a good job we got up and out of there before they came along. When we went for our walk along the beach, they had taken all the camels out of the truck and they were all lined up to lay down on the sand. We walked down to where the camels were and saw that they were offering camel rides. We did debate whether to go on a ride, but didn't bother as we thought it's expensive for what it was at $25 dollars per person. I took some pictures of the camels but some guys did want to go for a ride, so all the woman there called each camel by name and they all got up, while the two blokes got on them to be taken for a ride around. When they were all standing up, I realised how tall they actually are. We watched them be led over the sand dunes, so I followed them for a bit until they disappeared over the brow of the hill. We left after this to drive down towards Sydney, deciding to try and make it all the way there, only stopping for rests and toilet breaks.