The next leg involved hiring a campervan and driving to the Gold Coast. Here
is the campervan (the three of us took it in turns to drive). Having had my
own room for all but 2 of my 232 days away, David and Chrissie very kindly
agreed to take me to a hotel each day and then pick me up the next day. I
could hardly argue with Chrissie's description of me as a "princess", but unlike another famous princess, thankfully we made it to our destinations in one piece.
Oh, and TWO of you have asked what happened to the wee robot thing that
this blog is actually named after. Sadly, we parted ways in Panama, but his
cousin Datarobot flew out to Australia to take his place.
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I missed you so much (Datarobot)
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We didn't have far to drive on Day 1 - at it was only a few hours drive to
Newcastle, so we had time to stop and admire a few nice views.
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Sunset at "How the other half live"
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The next day, Chrissie and David decided to fling themselves out of an
aeroplane. I opted to stay on terra firma, being both very fond of having
money and not breaking my legs. To be fair, they both survived and it did
look a lot of fun.
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I was too skint / feart to do this
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Day two took us to Port MacQuarie, which was noteworthy for two things.
One was the miles of rocks along the seafront that people had
painted.
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Some were really well done. Others were quite frankly
terrible.
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And the other was the incredibly loud wildlife. Here's some noisy
birds....
... and some noisy frogs ...
... and what I presume were some very noisy bats, but I can't hear
ultrasound so I can't be sure.
And finally on day three, we drove to Byron Bay, which is where all the
beautiful people hang about, so I felt right at home. I also failed to take even a single photo there. Sadly, accommodation there was
absolutely extortionate, so I ended up staying in a hotel above a pub in a wee town
with the delightful name of Mullumbimby.
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"Mount" Chincogan on the road to Mullumbimby. Sadly it is a
private hill so I didn't get to climb it.
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I've stayed in nicer hotels certainly, but this one was the most
memorable. My room had TWO doors opening onto two different corridors,
one of which you could quite easily peer in and see what I was doing
(not that I was doing anything).
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One of the windows looking into my room. There was no
curtain.
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Also noteworthy was the lack of wifi. Not just crap wifi, no wifi. I've
stayed on campsites 4,000m up the Andes miles away from the nearest anything, and they had wifi, but Mullumbimby seems a wee bit old school.
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The Middle Pub, Mullumbimby. Now with no wifi.
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Still, I couldn't help find the place quite quirky and charming. I've
even got the sticker to prove it!
Thus brought an end to a short but very enjoyable road trip. Next time, Gold Coast!
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