Today should be our longest hitchhike, 400km from Byron Bay to Coffs Harbour. After it literally rained the whole night, also into the tent, we had a little lake in our tent (well, it was only a 32$ tent), and tried to convert it into a transportable condition in order to leave after breakfast. This time, we realized the biggest problem with hitchhiking. The search for a good spot. Byron Bay is not situated close to the highway, but 10km apart from it. After we tried to find a direct lift to the south, we changed our strategy and just wanted to get a lift to the highway. This strategy worked out pretty good, as it took only 2 minutes to find a lift to the highway, which was really weird. An Aussie and a British guy, the British now without any valid VISA in Australia and is stealing, drinking alcohol and taking drugs (his own words!). Luckily, the Australian guy was driving and the lift was only for 10min to the highway. With a good feeling now, we tried to find again a driver directly going south, but we figured out that we tried our luck on the wrong side of Byron Bay meaning that the entrance to the highway is mainly used for driving north so that our chances to get a lift south decreased. After around 30 minutes we were lucky and got a lift to the south, but only for 20km. At least (we thought), we are finally on the highway and in the right direction. Our driver from New Zealand dropped us of at a small rest area and we tried again to get finally a lift to Coffs Harbour. But, it didn’t work really well today and the slowly starting rain annoyed us a bit. But the rain should become a good point in the story. After again 45 minutes waiting, Nick picked us up. As he saw us standing in the rain, he felt bad and turned around on the highway. His plan was to go 30km before Coffs Harbour to camp in a national park and invited us to drive with him as long as we want or to directly join him camping. As we didn’t really have a plan for Coffs Harbour, this seemed to be perfect. But it was time to get all our luggage in his small car which was already packed with two surfboards, but it fitted ….
Nick was a great tourist guide and showed us due to a private appointment the city and coast of Ballina. We spent there 1.5h, but due to the increased rainfall the impression of the city wasn’t outstanding. Caused by the rain, we had to skip the camping as well, as the roads in the national park were flooded by knee deep water. That’s why we actually landed in the camping ground in Coffs Harbour, since Nick visited a friend there (and he even tried to convince him to let us stay there as well).
So we left this adventure behind us, but our passion for hitchhiking even increased due to our new friendship with Nick. The next day we explored the beaches and the botanical garden of Coffs Harbour, together with the Muttonbird Island which provides a very nice view on the coast of the city. Unfortunately, hitchhiking has a very tricky disadvantage (especially in Australia): Once you arrived at the place you want to be, you are still very inflexible and immobile, which results in very long walks even in a small town like Coffs Harbour. But well, to be honest there is not that much to see in there and it was nice anyway. In Germany we say: “the track is the goal” which is very true for hitchhiking.