to the great barrier reef and back, part 03

I will never forget our first night of camping. We arrived just before dinnertime, parked on the allocated spot, hidden in a leafy crescent, and went to see how does the place work. Moving cautiously, we explored the amenities block, the kitchen and the BBQ spot, and the behaviour of other visitors. The Byron Bay beach was just a couple of steps away, the thick greenery hosted wallabies, enormous butterflies, flowers and fat parrots. Everything smelled like freedom.

The first thing our tiny squad did, was of course going to the ocean. We walked barefoot and watched the sunset, having kilometres of sand and waves just for ourselves. Then the mood tune slightly changed – it was getting dark, our sleeping arrangement wasn’t quite clear and we were getting really hungry.

The car was filled with unreachable food, buried under shoes and blankets. 20 minutes later a noisy family feud started, over the important decision where exactly the Christmas lights garland should be hanging. Once we recovered from the tension and decided on the campervan’s design for the night, we finally went to produce dinner. People around were busy sizzling sausages and boiling eggs but we upstaged them all with the scope of our preparations. The kids, being cooking pros, quickly improvised a teppanyaki while I was decorating the table with linen cloths and silver cutlery.

There was a brief moment disrupting our idyllic gathering and namely the desperate cry of a newborn baby nearby who obviously didn’t enjoy the camping experience that much but luckily, it lasted less than it could have. Exhausted from all the emotions we then stared for a while to the myriads stars in the sky and went to have our first ever camping sleepover – Hanko and I in the van-turned-double bed and the kids in the rooftop tent.

There is nothing better than waking up to the sound of bird’s chirping and ocean waves, really. At 6 o’clock in the morning our tiny squad was already at the beach. Amazing sunrise, gorgeous weather. We run, we swim, we fish, life is beautiful. An hour and a half later we still run and swim but there is no fish so we got back to the camp and started packing. It was time to leave and drive for another 4-5-6 hours northwards.