Pod boy drove from Melbourne up to Townsville just before Christmas last year to spend Christmas with his nephews and meet me in Cairns on New Years Day. I flew from Christchurch to Auckland and then over to Cairns. I wish we had kept a travel diary when we did that trip. It was a turning point in our attitude to vandwelling and we found many beautiful places along the way and I wish we remembered exactly where they were. We're planning on doing a similar trip at the end of this year, and we will definitely be keeping a diary (most probably on here!).
All in all our trip, for me, was 10,421km and we visited at least 24 destinations.
I arrived at 0800 local time to a message left on my cell phone saying that Pod boy was very sorry but he would be late to the airport as a tree had fallen across the road and he was waiting for someone to come and remove it. I'll let Pod boy add the details of that wee incident, it was rather funny. So as I had time I had a shower at the airport, little did I know that would be the last shower in a bathroom for a very long time!
The first few days that Pod boy and I were together we spent a lot of time exploring the area that he had grown up in. The first place he took me to was this beautiful water hole, it was one of the most romantic moments of my life when Pod boy washed my hair here. I had had strict instructions to only bring natural soaps and hair products, obviously he knew we would be "roughing it". But truly, there is something so freeing about finding secluded spots to swim naked and wash. It puts you totally in harmony with nature and makes you so grateful for everything that we have on this earth.
This is another water hole we found, Pod boy had me rather scared here because he kept thinking he had seen a crocodile. We actually spent the night here too, it was lovely - it was also where I was bitten for the first of over 400 itchy bites.
We found out that there was a good swimming creek near where we were staying so we drove out to find it, on the way we found this sign:
We actually never found that particular creek (if I remember correctly we found a secluded forest and had a bucket wash!) I like a big bucket of water or two thrown over me, especially after a hot and sweaty workout.
I'm also uploading this photo of Coffs Harbour because I fell in love with the beach and the town here. We went for a moonlit walk with Pod dog on this beach before falling asleep listening to the waves. Coffs Harbour was special for so many reasons, it was where we had our first big argument (although Pod boy says that he doesn't think we actually ever have BIG arguments - I think that's because he's had some BIG BIG arguments in his life so our basis of comparison is off) and it was the first place where we had an actual shower rather than a wash in a natural water source.
There is one other place where we had a memorable wash, I just cannot for the life of me remember exactly where it was. We stopped for the night in this little seaside town and searched for the beach showers we were sure would be there...there weren't any. But we went for a walk up to some waterfalls we had heard were there with our togs and towels and then got changed and climbed over the railing and then up the rocks and boulders to sit underneath the waterfall. We have no pictures because we didn't want to have to worry about the camera. The interesting thing was that while we were under the waterfall another couple came and also climbed up to get under the waterfall.
The rest of the way south we found various showers: on the beach and in rest areas. When we got to Melbourne we found the shower area that Pod boy still uses most days. It's right by the beach and has unlimited hot water.
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