June 15th, 2019
Today we packed up the condo and set out for the rest of our trip up Australia’s East Coast. Our first stop was about 3 hours north at Byron Bay. A really cute town with a great coastal walk to a lighthouse. We found free street parking and went on a hike to the lighthouse to break up the drive. The coastline was beautiful, and we saw dolphins and humpback whales closer to the shore than I would have thought!
After a few hours of hiking and going through town, we continued driving and left the state of New South Wales and entered into Queensland. We drove though the Gold Coast and Brisbane but instead of staying in the city, we decided to keep driving to give us more time on the beaches which is what we are most excited about. From Byron Bay we drove another 3 hours or so and stopped for the night in the middle of nowhere at another free campsite. I have been so impressed that we have been able to camp for free every time. This campsite was the most crowded one we had been to and there were many people socializing around campfires. The East Coast is a very traveled route here. I expect we will find more and more people doing the same thing we are. Distance-wise, what we are doing (driving from Sydney to Cairns) is like driving from San Diego to Seattle along the coast. Today we ate leftovers from what we had made at the condo and went to bed in the car to a movie on the iPad.