The great journey began almost as soon as camp ended. I gave myself on day's grace between the end of one and the beginning of another as I did need to shower and unpack. The next day, I picked up the car and headed off for Sydney where I met up with my great friend, Isabella. We'd known each other from Ottawa and she'd planned to come down to Australia when the chance arose. It turned out that this particular January suited us both and so she flew down from Calgary. Isabella stayed in Sydney a few days while I was away at camp. We met on the 5th of January and wandered around Sydney for a bit. This was Isabella's first time in Australia and I took great pleasure in showing her around Sydney's Circular Quay. After nightfall, we each returned to our separate accommodations --- Isabella in the north and me in the inner south. I drove to the place she was staying and picked her up the next morning.
We had a little to discuss before we could proceed. The floodwaters in Queensland were still high and we had to decide wether or not to stick to our original route or perhaps go the opposite way. In the end, we decided to go north as planned, so we set off for Grafton, a small city on New South Wales' north coast. We got on the highway and headed out of Sydney, and here is where we had our first misadventure.
As we passed Newcastle there was a confusing highway junction and instead of taking the coastal Pacific Highway, I turned onto the inland New England Highway. It wasn't very long before I realized the mistake but by the time I did notice, it wouldn't have saved us any time to backtrack and go back up the Pacific Highway, so we stayed on the New England. The countryside was green, but not very; sort of a mix between forest and grassland. We drove through picturesque small towns until we arrived at Tamworth, the home of country music in Australia. We stayed only briefly; just long enough to take some pictures on the giant guitar.
The next big center was Armidale, a university town. Not much can be said for Armidale and we didn't stop in it. From there we turned onto a mountain highway that wound its way northeast of Armidale through the Great Dividing Range. The sun was setting quickly and we soon found ourselves in fading light on a twisting forest road. Along the way Isabella spotted a SUV that had gone off the road. We stopped and she got out to check but there was no one in the vehicle so we can only assume that they made it out safely. We continued on but it became clear that it would be dark by the time we hit Grafton. Also, it had begun to rain.
We drove onward and soon the mountain road gave way to the coastal plains. Along the way a tree had fallen across part of the road and only 100 meters away was a sign that said "Beware Fallen Trees". Later on there was a cow beside the road and only 100 meters away was a sign that said "Beware Cattle On Road". Isabella and I both thought that these signs were useless given they only warned of the danger after you'd passed it.
At any rate, we soldiered on until we reached Grafton. Isabella had brought a tent and our original plan had been to pitch it for some camping. However, with the rain beating down neither of us wanted to do that so we found a combination hotel-pub-bottle shop-restaurant of which Australia has in spades and spent the night there. In fact, for the price we paid, a total of $65, the room was quite nice.
That was only the first day, and there were many more to come. Indeed the next few days involved some difficult choices, but some wonderful company as well.
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