We made a real go of it today. We got up relatively early, had breakfast, did Axel’s schoolwork and got on the road. We drove about 260 kilometers with a short stop for lunch in Taree on the way. We ended up at our intended destination Port MacQuarie at about 5 pm.The first campsite we visited was run or associated with the same one we had come from in Port Stephens so we ran. The second one is a couple of kliks out of town by Flynns beach and is a little quirkier, it is also much prettier. It is set in some lovely woodlands and we are parked under a few eucalyptus trees which we were told harbour few Koala’s, viscious bastards. We parked up in our ‘bay’ and re-parked to get the most of the rising sun from the east. I have to remember to get my compass out when parking in these sites, and immediately got to know the neighbours. The first one was ‘Herman the German’, he’s actually Dutch, been here for 44 years and currently living in Tazmania, when he’s not travelling around in his VW camper, which has, form the look of it done some serious milage. It has everything you would need and looks pretty damned comfy when you spot him through the window with his bottle of Ballintines on the table. He was very helpful, with a strong Dutch accent, coming over with maps of Tazmania and pointing out the right places to go.
It turns out Herman is a naturist. I got chatting to him again and came away with loads of information and brochures on all the naturist camping sites and beaches on the NSW coastline. I came back to our camper and suggested to Lisa that we give it a go and got short shrift. I showed her one of the brochures of a nice looking place where the kids could feed the joeys and we could get togged out as nature intended and was told to bugger off! Lisa did say that she didn’t fancy cooking in the nude on front of complete strangers but wouldn’t mind a day at a nudist beach, so I’ll keep working on her. Herman’s wife, Alisa used to go camping with him but now only fly’s to meet him at his intended destination and lets him work his way home to Tasmania in his VW combi. Alisa has been unwell lately and got savaged by sand flies at one of the campsite outdoor cooking areas and has had enough of life on the road.
We met Herman returning that night on his way back from the little Greek restaurant he normally goes to with Alisa and asked him to join us. We were sitting outside our camper van on our camp chairs in the woods drinking some cheap Aussie plonk. Herman brought over the end of his Greek plonk and I even got to sample a good few of his Ballintines. We had a good old campsite session.
We have traded emails and phone numbers and promised if we got to Tasmania to look him up. We will if we ever get there.
I had my first real hangover in a long time that morning, cheap vino and nice whiskey, uuuuugghh!
Next to Herm who is 66 we have two younger but older types who are travelling in a converted Hyace type of thing with, what looks like a home made tent pitched up beside it. They also have a couple of dogs and I am not sure yet whether the van or the tent is for the animals or them, I will keep an eye on this. I noticed them tonight both sitting in the cab of the van with the map lights on reading for a couple of hours. This can only get more interesting as we are still in a relatively ‘civilised’ part of New South Wales.
Great beach across the road, surf lessons for Axel, Lisa and me, yippeee!