The past week we had to quickly make our way up the East coast of NSW to meet our friends in Byron Bay for a music festival, Splendour in the Grass.

From Canberra, we headed towards the coast to Batemans bay where we spent one night at a  campground situated in the Murramarang National Park. It was instantly warmer near the beach here compared to Canberra and nice to be able to sit outside again . A wake up call by a kookaburra the next morning we were up before the sun to catch a sunrise over the ocean, with the full moon behind us in the sky. Being from WA we are not used to watching the sun rising over the ocean, it is nice, but I still like the sun set over the ocean better 😉

With a timeline for once, we had to keep moving up the coast passing by Ulla Dulla, Mollymook and Milton then arriving at Lake Conjola. We stopped for the night at a very nice caravan park situated on the river mouths entrance. It was warm enough here to get our bathers on, so we rode our bikes along the river mouth to the entrance of the ocean and got some much needed vitamin D.

We would have liked to stay here longer but the price per night was well out of our budget plus with school holiday rates it was time to move on.

The next morning we made tracks further up the coast, we passed by Jervis Bay, Swan haven, Shell Harbour and Wollongong. Parking up for the night at a beaut camp spot with uninterrupted ocean views in Coledale. Michael went for a swim in the ocean pool as I practiced some yoga with a view. We had stayed overnight at this spot so the next morning we could drive over the well known Seacliff bridge, which was a bridge that wrapped around the edges of the cliffs in a snake like shape with views dropping straight down to the Pacific. After an exhilarating start to our day we purposely by passed Sydney main city cente (we will come back down to visit there) we kept driving for most of the day to the small town of Morisset where we stayed at the show grounds and spent the afternoon driving to the nearby lake Macquarie.

We had lost our camera charging cord, so the next day we needed to drive to Newcastle to get a new one and then had a quick look around the town. We decided to drive back from the coast inland as we followed the Pacific highway to the cheapest accommodation in the region which lead us to the town of Kempsey, where we again stayed at the showgrounds. Just one night here as there wasn’t much to do in the area we jumped back on the Pacific highway arriving at Coffs Harbour.

We were finally within a close distance to Byron Bay so we parked up in Coffs Harbour at the local Leagues Club for a couple of days as we looked around Coffs Harbour. Our First night at the Club happened to be a Friday when the club did cheap meals and raffles. I got steak and chips and Michael got a Parma and chips plus 2 Schooners all for $20. We were happy campers that night even though we didn’t win the meat raffle.

The weather was getting warmer the higher we got up the coast, we were both so happy to be back in bathers and at the beach. We couldn’t have visited Coffs Harbour without visiting the Big Banana, which turns out to be a family fun park which I was unaware of. We were soon out of there once we got our token tourist shot and some rock candy.

The weather had turned to Sh** the next day so our plans of laying on the beach all day had changed (It’s a hard life). After having a look at what else we could do in the area we were lead up waterfall way to the beautiful Dorrigo National park. We completed the steep 6.6km circuit around the dense palm and fern tree filled rainforest. The photos just don’t do it justice, I think is one of my most common sayings because it’s just so true and common for us. Let alone we also couldn’t capture the mist, and the clean, fresh air your breath in while visiting places like this. Even if you’re at home working the 9-5 and can’t access a rainforest to explore in, you should make the effort each day to enjoy the fresh air and time outdoors even on the chilly mornings/ evenings I am sure will make a difference to your wellbeing and its good for the soul.

Our week full of rushing up the east coast had come to an end as we arrived in the Beautiful Byron Bay. There was lots we missed, but we plan to head back down to Sydney to fill in the gaps. You will have to read next week to see what we got up to in Byron when our friends from Perth came to visit.

	WEEK 21	TOTAL
Kilometres	1291km	23,110km
Sunrises watched	5	49
Sunsets watched	5	65
Beaches visited	22	120
Fish caught	0	22
Snakes sighted	0	6