Crocophile Dundee

Greyhound Stop 2: Bellingen, 748km north of Sydney

Wednesday, 9.30am. We checked out of the Newcastle YHA and ambled down to the bus station to catch the Greyhound to Urunga, half-way between Sydney and Brisbane. The trip took over 8 hours with the temperature outside bordering on 30 degrees. Fortunately the air conditioning was working well and the bus was only half-full so we could stretch our a little. On the way we made a pit stop at the 'Rock Roadhouse' a miniature Uluru / service station - elaborate roadside signs and petrol stations are an abundant feature in Australia.

At Urunga we switched to a minibus to take us the remaining 15km to Bellingen, a small town of roughly 2000 people nestled in the base of the Bellinger Valley. Bellingen is a town that wouldn't look completely out of place somewhere in the old west - the first transport we spotted in the town was horse-powered. The hostel itself is a quaint collection of small wood cabins connected by narrow paths, a place where wide verandas overlook distant mountains and rain forest, and hammocks creak in the breeze near tall palms.

On Thursday morning we hired canoes and paddled down the Bellinger river. Our guide Aussie Daniel pointed out to us huge rock dragons sunning themselves on the quiet river banks, enormous bee hives cemented in the tree tops, and majestic eagles swooping above with wingspans comparable to the length of our canoes. But we weren't paying much attention to Aussie Daniel as we were having far too much fun playing with the floating plastic crocodile head he'd planted in the water to scare us, but now his plan had backfired and the tour was in real jeopardy as we amused ourselves taking photos next to the head instead of listening to him. If our crocodile head antics weren't bad enough we spent the rest of our time racing up the river and trying to ground each other's canoes on the river banks by ramming them or worse still using our paddles to push each other into low hanging tree branches. Which was all fun and games until I came out from one crawling with tiny black spiders. I managed to flick most of them off but one got past me. There was only a moment to act but the distracting laughter from across the river slowed my reactions and the spider got in first. Ordinarily a spider bite wouldn't faze me but when you're in a country renowned for being home to the world's most poisonous creatures, added to the fact that you're paddling down a sub-tropical river only a few miles from a rain forest it's hard not to worry. The bite quickly hived up to about the size of my fingernail. I paddled over to Aussie Daniel to let him know. His response "aw well, that could be a bit of a problem, if it gets any bigger don't worry about it, if it gets really big then... aw well don't worry too much, but it could be a bit of a problem eh". A bit of a problem eh?! Fortunately it didn't get any bigger. After an hour of paddling the heat finally won out and we decided to heave the canoes out of the water and go for a swim in the river. After that we paddled back to the canoe cabin for a well earned lunch of succulent watermelons, juicy oranges and tasty croissants.

Later that day we borrowed three inner tubes and trekked a mile upstream to the rope swings. After half an hour of launching ourselves into the crisp cool water we eventually tired of being shown up by 12-year old kids doing back flips off the highest rope swings. So lazily we sagged down inside our inner tubes and floated effortlessly down stream until we came to the rapids. No one had explained that the "rapids" are about 3 inches deep. Not expecting the change in water depth we scraped our backsides over 20 or 30 meters of jagged rocks before reaching deeper water. At one point we got stuck as the water forced us forwards against rocks that skewered through the rings. Lee hit the rapids first and screamed as the rocks stabbed upwards, seriously reducing his likelihood of having children someday. David and I followed close behind, our tortured screams disturbed picnics up and down the river as we lurched forwards over the rocks.

After we survived castration falls we changed rooms to open air beds overlooking the Valley. Not our choice, but they were the only beds left due to some world music festival that's happening on Friday and the crazy demand for beds. We covered ourselves in mosquito repellent to avoid being stung. Lee managed to spray the highly toxic insect repellent directly at his face, making his already bruised lips (see surf board incident) sting even more.

Arrrghhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Croco-head attack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!