I arrived in Port Stephens for a Quad Bike & Sandboarding adventure. I typed in the address in the Sat Nav and it directed me to the middle of nowhere, where I was greeted by Tuc and Zac from Sand Dune Adventures who would be guiding our group. We got straight to it, helmets on and the safety talk began which basically boiled down to using your common sense and not being an idiot. Couldn’t agree more.
Before I knew it we were following one another up this sandy trail and headed to the dunes! We started off nice and easy with a few people getting stuck as they were afraid to give it some wellie up some of the dunes: they ended up digging themselves a hole and getting stuck, but everyone got the knack and when they did: woweee! Taking these quads full throttle: up, down, left, right, drifting around these massive dune faces. Heading over these crazy cliff edge drops one after the other. One minute you’re surrounded by these huge dunes, the next you’re on top of one and can see all the way out to sea!
When on a giant sand dune what else do you do?! #60DayAdventure pic.twitter.com/6dhmwEcZoi
— Backpacker (@BackpackerBySTA) December 9, 2015
We stopped for a quick spot of sandboarding. I’d been snowboarding, surfing and skateboarding before, but never sandboarding and didn’t know what to expect! Only one way to find out though… I grab the board, sit on it and simply… GO. It’s like sledging but in sand and 35-degree heat. Which you’d probably think is great until you have to walk back up. I highly recommend this if you’re ever exploring Port Stephens. I don’t think you’d know this epic desert was there otherwise and what a way to see it!
I was now back in my camper and headed to my second festival of my 60 day adventure. A small festival called Vanfest in Forbes, where I’d be picking up a travel blogger by the name of Jules who runs a blog with his girlfriend called ‘Don’t Forget To Move’. I headed to the airport and picked up Jules and off we go on our five-hour drive to the festival. Seems like a long time but it was actually a really good way to get to know Jules before the festival. Turned out we had so much in common! Five hours of chatting later, we arrive in Forbes, headed straight into the festival and parked the camper up. Jules’ glamping spot unfortunately wasn’t ready yet, but it wasn’t a problem as we had my trusty camper. So after a few hours of chilling the festival finally opened and in we went.
I am a huge festival person, what’s not to love? Sunshine, good music, cold beers, mates… I mean come on! It was such a lovely setting. The sun was setting, music started pulsing in the background and everybody had huge amounts of energy. So Jules and I spent the evening wandering around chatting to different people and listening to epic music. At one point we headed backstage to grab some food and sat with three guys from the UK, eating pesto pasta with them. We chatted for a while, we asked them what they did and they said they were backing singers for a band. We didn’t really think much of it and thought “OK that’s cool”. About three hours later we see one of them centre-stage with the microphone and it turned out to be Rudimental! We couldn’t believe it. So nice to meet such humble people who are that famous. And did they smash the show or what! It’s not my first time seeing them live and I can safely say it won’t be my last either. Also Peking UK were absolutely out of control! The energy they delivered to the crowd was unreal: so good. So, after a successful first night we headed back to the camp site to get some rest, eager to get tomorrow started.
Sun setting at Vanfest festival! #60dayadventure #backpackerbystatravel #vanfest2015 pic.twitter.com/t2X5qYAdg7
— Backpacker (@BackpackerBySTA) December 10, 2015
Saturday turned out to be one of the hottest yet! It was outrageously hot. Everyone was congregating anywhere where there was shade. But before we knew it, the sun began to set and a rapper by the name of Illy started to take over the stage followed by the John Butler Trio and wow, what an epic performance! Their talent is mind-blowing and they were clearly one of the most awaited acts of the whole festival. We found a nice spot and just took the whole set in..
The next morning we woke up, packed up the camper and headed to the nearest cafe that sells avos on toast. Thank you Jules and Vanfest for this fine Aussie adventure
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