Blog Day 180 Wed 2nd November 2011

We hit the road straight away again this morning, we can't really hang around to cook any brekkie as we have run clean out of gas. An hour and a half later and we are walking into the tourist info building in Newcastle.

The fella that we talk to is obviously very proud to call Newcastle his home and we leave feeling that we should emigrate here right away! With an arm full of leaflets we take a drive along the coastal roads and check out the beaches, which are packed. The sun is out and so are the sun seekers, although there is a bit of a chill in the air. On one of the leaflets we read about the stunning BBQ areas at one of the parks. By now we are both starving hungry so it's a no brainer that we should head here. We park up and spend the next 20 minutes trying to figure out whether we need to pay for parking or not. The parking signs are shocking and we can't afford to make the same mistake as yesterday. One car park charges $10.25 for 4 hours whilst another car park that isn't 100 yards away charges $6.50 for 10 hours, only a tiny island of grass separates the two! We are currently parked in the more expensive one. Once we pull round to the cheaper of the two we realise that we don't even have $6.50! Grrrrrr! We take a quick drive in search of a news agent and find ourselves back at the ticket machine in no time with a hand full of $2 coins. So now we are parked up time to BBQ!

We pack up a bag with all the necessary items eggs, bacon, bread, butter, ketchup and head off into the park with tummies grumbling and mouths watering. We discover 6 BBQs in the park. 3 of which are covered and I mean COVERED in grease and burnt on food with the other 3 as clean as a whistle. We unpack our stuff push the button on the hotplate and wait for it to warm up………and wait, and wait, and wait.

Turns out there's a good reason for these BBQs being so clean……………………because they don't flaming' work! Honestly all this for a poxy bacon and egg sandwich.

By now it's gone 1 o'clock and Trish mutters those immortal words, "Sod this, let's go get a Subway!"

And that's exactly what we did, Subway and an ice old Frappuccino (chocolate for Dan, coffee for Trish, both with a ton of whipped cream and chocolate sauce!) Sometimes you just need a little lift and not the Tic-Tac kind.

We spend the next couple of hours sitting back in the park watching the world go by and reassessing our travel itinerary. One thing we do know is that we won't be moving to Newcastle, as lovely as the place is, and with that we jump back in the van and head off down the Pacific Highway towards our next rest stop 100km outside Sydney.