Stranded...in a tent

blip, blop, plip, plop....squawk! Cooo cooo chaa chaa chaa chaa!!! Welcome to the wake up calls of our current holiday abode, Suffolk Park Holiday Park, located 7 km south of Byron Bay, NSW. We've been residents for 3 days and quarantined for the last 12 hours due to torrential downfalls. Note past the ellipses and you'll hear the beautiful calls of the resident NSW bird population soothing you to a morning wakeup, well, except they do that at sunup which happens to begin at 4:30am. The squawk is from the local bush turkeys and the "Cooo cooo chaa chaa chaa chaa!!!" comes from the big-billed kookaburras that tend to annoy even the heartiest Australians - even the deaf ones.

Five days into Christmas vacay and we've done quite a bit already. Nina, the word traveler, who's been back to the States most recently, got us a sweet setup of snorkeling gear and Clif bars to set us up for departure from Newcastle. Unfortunately, sickness had its own vote to cast in when we were going to leave for our roadtrip, disabling both of us last Tuesday with the flu. Lame. We nevertheless (at about 75 percent capability) hoisted north along the best freeway in Australia (all 2 lanes of it) in a Holden Astra filled to the brim with swimming gear, snorkelling gear, and tents galore.

We stopped for the nigth four hours up the road in Nambucca Heads. Americans who're reading this, try and pronounce that name, and I'll tell you that you're wrong. Don't worry, we did the same thing. NambBUCKA heads has mosquitos bigger than your face and a decent view onto the Pacific, but for us it was a resting and recovering point. The small tent was laid out, and we appreciated our normal bed the next morning as we awoke to the pains of s;eeping on the roll-out camp matresses (fail). We (expeditiously) got in the Astra and rolled up to Byron Bay.

The drive was quick and purposeful as Nina and I both had the weather radar playing out on the computer as we drove toward our night's campsite. Blue, purple, and red dotted the screen, and we attempted to figure out when the downpour was going to occur over the future-night's sight as we noted the swell towns that dotted the map on our journey northward. Arriving around 1pm we quickly donned the tent and tarp emclosure just to beat the light rain that followed the rest fo the afternoon.

We rolled into Byron Bay, got some lunch and laid out on the beach in the now sunny weather. Byron Bay is a HUGE tourist hotspot, attracting mega-large pops of backpackers from worldwide and an enormous Australian contingent as it's only a 90-minute drive from Brisbane and even less from the Gold Coast. Nervertheless, imagine great beaches and equivalent shopping and you've got Byron Bay.

Night in tent insert here - next day was snorkelling on an island 3km off the beach - sharks, manta rays, and turtkes galore. Great conditions, and I'm getting sick of writing this blog. I'll update later - have a great Christmas and happy New Years and we'll be with you soon...ish.