We bought a van! Meet Shark Bait. Isn’t he a cutie?
We found our van on Gumtree. Vans are a lot more expensive here than they were in New Zealand. Luckily we found a couple vans our second day in Melbourne within our price range. The first van was the more expensive one, but man was it dope. An awesome orange color with a lace design painted on the side. It’s back doors opened like a pair of french doors, opening to a unique van layout. The couple selling the van said they had to sleep with the back doors open because the guy was over 6 feet tall and his legs were too long for any bed. This van ran on diesel, and Jordan drove it around the block while I chatted with the hippy Portuguese chick.
The second van was much more affordable than the first. It ran well and came fully equipped. This one was set up with a fridge and toaster oven as well that worked when the van was hooked up to electricity at a campground. They were then supposed to stay cool from the extra battery that was stored under the bed that would charge while the car is running. Cool. The girl selling this van had a death in her family and had to return home to England ASAP. As soon as she sold the van, she was off to end her time in Australia. A sad situation who’s urgency lead to the van being sold at such a low price. And that’s how we ended up with Shark Bait.
We ended up using PayPal to transfer funds for the vehicle. Like JIM in New Zealand, this van had been passed down a long line of backpackers coming and going from the country. Each van was passed off with a folder of preciously preserved history of all work having been done on the van from the past 5 owners or so. Hopefully we won’t be adding too much to this collection of papers.
We chose to leave the city as soon as the van was ours, our third day in Australia. We hadn’t been here long enough to get to know the country or where to go at all. Should we take the road to South Australia and see the 12 Apostles on our way to the West Coast? Or should we head north along the Easy Coast and see Sydney to Brisbane?
Our first night we found a campsite by the beach. We parked in between fishermen and families. The instant we stopped I ran to the water to explore. This beach was miles of flat white sand with washed up anemone shells and waves in the sand where the wind sculpted its presence. We spent a lovely afternoon here drinking cider and every so once in a while moving our towel along with the shade to stay out of the hot reach of the sun.
Exploring the inside of our van later that night, I came to a wonderful discovery. The bed we’d assumed was just a full bed that had a few sections that lifted up for storage, was actually also a bench style table! The middle section had a pole that attached it to the floor of the van and viola. Come up! If only this van had an extended roof, then it would be perfection.
We ended up ditching the fridge and toaster oven. We were not going to ever pay for a power site and those items took up too much space. We found out quickly that donating electronics in Australia is actually really difficult to do. They have to be tested before they’re sold, and so most places just don’t take them. Getting rid of these two items gave us enough room for storage and unveiled our pump sink! There is a clip fan by the bed that can run when the van is off at night using the battery’s power that charged during the day’s drive. I’m so ready to sleep on every beach possible!
We started up the East Coast, using CamperMate to figure out where we are going to sleep for the night. CamperMate isn’t used as much here in Australia as it was in New Zealand. It seems like most people like to use WikiCamps Australia here. The drive isn’t what I expected at all. The roads are long and straight with not much in between towns, besides red dirt and bush. The highway along the ocean is really kilometers away, so while on the map it looks like you’re right next to the ocean, really there’s fields of bush in between you and the water. The terrain is flat, so you have no hope to see ocean. Inside towns, there is always a large park right next to the water, with houses across the street. This way there is public access to the shore. As we drive further north, we begin to see jellyfish nets strung up at beaches to give beachgoers a safe area to swim.
We spent a night at the Pebbly Beach Campground in Murramarang National Park. The turnoff for this campground was seemingly into the bush like any other bush we’d been driving by for hours and hours and hours and hours. The road grew more and more wild and torn up as we drove along until we got to a one lane gravel drive and thanked the universe it hadn’t rained recently. The ferns and brush reached over onto the road, scratching the van and picking Shark Bait’s teeth. We emerged from the brush and arrived at a very small very quaint campground. There were warnings online that people will try to camp here without a reservation. So we weren’t surprised when after dinner a car pulls up and asks if we mind if he uses the other half of our site. It was late and no problem for us. In the morning we noticed this had happened to a few other sites as well.
The walk down to the beach was a beautiful walk through the bush, enjoying the smell of eucalyptus leaves and the sound of the ocean waves.
