Byron Bay.

Drove in, in the late afternoon. Staying at Glen Villa Resort. It's a caravan park with lots of little cabins of various types. The sites are close together but overall it's not too bad. But the weather didn't cooperate in the least! Rainy and pretty chilly all afternoon and evening. I'm tired of the shitty weather.

The campground is a little expensive, by my standards, but I wanted to be close in to town so I could walk around and see stuff. In that respect it's worth it. I'd read a bunch about the town. It was a kind of hippy colony back in the 70's and 80's. And it gets a lot of good press. Yeah, the beach is really nice.

And there are a number of curious historic buildings. I guess it was a shipping point for all sorts of agricultural stuff and even for seafood. Ships would come right into a long wharf that stuck out into the bay.

But now it's become totally hipster. Lots of cafe/bars. Plenty of little places to eat. Clothing stores, you name it. It's a pretty enough town, including the residential areas but just waay to hipster for me. But, I'm glad I stopped here.

Camping has had interesting aspects. On one side of me are two young couples in a pair of tents. They are from South London and apparently have been in Oz for 7 or 8 months. Working and hanging out. Today a rental campervan pulled in on the other side and it's a couple from the Netherlands who are cruising Australia for about 6 weeks. And in the common areas, I hear languages that I don't really recognize. So, it's a place for international travellers.

Staying in the campground has been kind of interesting on its own. Lots of different varieties of camper vehicles. Caravans to simple tents. I love this tiny rooftop tent on this car. I think that there was just one guy staying in it.

And here are my Londoner next door neighbors. Look at the double swag in the background. I'm going to have to get me a swag before too long. Maybe in Cairns. But I don't know where the hell I'd put it. The Troopy is already filling up.

And here's how tight it was: my Troopy next to my Dutch neighbors in their rental van.

It was a couple of days pretty well spent in spite of the rain. So now moving on to Brisbane. I'll be staying in an AirBnB so I'll have plenty of internet and time to get a few things done before heading into slightly less populated area.

Just a few ruminations!

OK, been on the road for about a week. Time to go back and reconstruct some of it and try to move on in the coming posts. When I first got here the Troopy was in flux. They had done most of the really serious work but outfitting the main interior was not done. Here’s a couple of photos of what it looked like when I got here.

So I spent a week in an AirBnB in the far Sydney suburbs, near Project Overlander, trying to purchase things that I’m going to need. Mostly stuff like a cookstove and pots and pans and sheets and towels.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t very well organized so made what seems like countless trips to Target and Kmart. At one point, driving through the Sydney outskirts, I decided to hit up Ikea. Yeah, that Ikea. It actually worked pretty well. I was able to get a lot of the “kitchen” gear I wanted. Then I was ready (sort of) to test it out. I spent a couple of nights in parks not far from Sydney. There was a big 4WD/Adventure show at the Sydney Dragway over the 6 through 8 of the month. I decided to go to it on Friday to see if I couldn’t buy some of the needed gear at a discount. It did work. But I ended up spending a shitload and feeling like I’m hemorrhaging bucks. Logically, these are items that I need and things that have to be purchased from high quality manufacturers. Things like ropes for recovery. Who’d want a rope that might break when used? So, from a practical perspective it made sense but emotionally signing the credit card slips got pretty tough. Well, it’s almost done. Still a few things that I need and I’ll get them in Brisbane.

I’m making my way slowly north. Spent a couple of nights in the Glenreagh Recreation Reserve. Didn’t take any photos. It started raining on my second day and it’s been shitty since. But I had good cell signal so I did all of the paperwork for a one year visa. Now I just need a medical exam.

Today I drove to Byron Bay. I was looking forward to exploring this beach and ex-hippy town. But it’s rainy, breezy, and the temperature is between 12 and 18 degrees. Just really shitty!

So far, it’s been OK but really mostly driving through relatively populated areas. Up near Glenreagh, it’s really pretty agricultural countryside. Lot of cows, some greenhouses and green grass. But no real adventure. And most of the driving has just been divided highways.

Well, that's the story for the moment. I'll try to get some stuff about Byron Bay later.