Day 30
It was long haul from Byron Bay to Brisbane. Over the course of about five days I traveled approximately 165Km. Four out of five nights spent camped out along the beach.
I left Byron mid afternoon on the first day, making my way north along the beach – Destination Tweed Heads. The first day I took my time, making it just south of Brunswick Heads where I stopped, sure that I could find a spot to make my camp for the night. It’s a good thing I did too!
That night I feasted on a gourmet of boiled New Zealand Spinach I had picked earlier that day. It was, to my surprise, much better tasting than I had expected!
I had waited till almost dark to set up camp and till well after to get my fire lit so I wouldn’t attract too much attention. About 20’ in the bush off the beach I found a small clearing under some low growing trees and set up there. Using the last remaining light I pitched my tent in record time! I then scurried about to finish collecting enough firewood for the evening. I only needed enough to boil a small pot of water to cook the spinach.
Being winter, dark comes early. June 21 being the shortest day of the year was almost here, and it showed, 6:00PM and it was dark!
Turns out I had collected just enough wood for to finish cooking the spinach after building a decent bed of coals. Then it was off to bed.
The next day I awoke early and was quick to tear down and get on the move again. It was good two hours in the sun heading up the beach to Brunswick Heads, the soft sand not letting me move quite as quick as I had hoped. But never-the-less I made it into and past town and found my way back to the shoreline by noon. Once again it was off along the coast, an endless expanse of ocean to my right, temperate rainforests to my left - my own little sub-tropical paradise.
I was several more days heading up the coast, feeding on mainly Pigface, Spinach and on about day three, to my delight I stumbled upon a Mandarin Orange tree. Heaven!
The roughly 65Km route I had planned was definitely a great test of both myself and my pack. But before I could make it into Tweed Heads I had to detour back onto the road side for a while, and was almost instantly offered a ride north. Since I had no real itinerary I accepted the ride and found myself being dropped off just south of Miami, near Burleigh Heads. Reassuring me there were many, many backpacker hostels all around, I was left to wander town. I found out very quickly there were, in fact, NO such things within 15-20Km. SO I walked to the north end of Miami and bunked in a the first and cheapest little motel I could.
I found myself in a similar situation that I would have had I tried to walk out of Sydney. One town becomes the next. No chance of pitching a tent and no chance of hitch-hiking. So after a hot shower and a chance to rest my body I set out first thing the net morning for Brisbane. I walked for eight hours, trudging from Miami almost right to Pimpama, 40Kms. Finally I was offered a ride right into Brisbane where I am now.
Thanks to strained tendons in my ankle I am laying low for another few days while I plan the next stage of the trek. An opportunity has risen to travel about 800Km west in a remote cattle station near Augathella, Queensland. Finally, the real outback! from there I will make the decision to either backtrack somewhat to the coast, to Fraser Island, and then continue on to Cairns, or to continue heading west to Alice Spring seeing as I will be half way there already. My timeline may shift slightly, putting me in Cairns for late August if I take that route. Though landing me in Alice almost right on schedule if I continue west.
*As many of you may have noticed and already become aware, Google Adsense is no longer operating on this site. Google decided that the amount of traffic generating from my blog was due to "Suspicious Activity", and after appealing to their board they decided to remove the program from my blog, feeling I was abusing their system. Just to clear that up with anyone who might have been wondering.
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