East coast

On Tuesday we left for a road trip up the east coast. We picked Damian up from his residence and set out with a car full of entertainment and homemade goods.

By 10.30pm we had just past Sydney. It became obvious our plans to camp on the beach were a tad ambitious. We found the closest turn off and stopped at a resting area off the highway. In the morning we woke to these scenes.

Pretty? Yes. Quiet? No. The highway was only 200m away. It was also a noisy boat ramp.

We were back on the road early. I slept in the back of the car overnight, so we had to play a second game of Tetris with our bags in the morning.

We took turns along the way to drive, Damian always the navigator on the passenger side. This usually entailed directing us to streets that didn't exist, and cursing at the phone map. On the instructions of Beanhunter this time, we stopped in an industrial part of Newcastle at a coffee shop that also doubled as a weird French furniture factory.

As always, most of our time was spent eating food. We procured this salad and a juice from a cafe in Port Macquarie.

We stopped to get some supplies at the local shops and pointed out how fresh all the vegetables looked. 

We didn't buy any Silverbeet or Wombok, but I liked the textures.

The scenery became fairly wonderful, especially as the sun was setting.

We were determined to set up camp before the sun fully set, so we turned off a random road just before Coffs Harbour.

We followed a winding road down into a forest and passed some houses. Just before the national park opened up, we spotted an old barefooted man in a rainbow beanie seemingly giving directions. 

"Victoria. The place to be. I think you are in the wrong place," he joked, rumbling with laughter.

He mumbled something about German tourists and then said, "if they ask you why you've stopped, just tell them you're resting and they can't do anything." We figured out this meant it was a no camping area. We bid him farewell and travelled deeper into the forest. At the end of the road was a perfect patch of grass and an idyllic beach. We couldn't believe our luck.

This is the dinner platter we constructed - covering all good food groups.