Coolangatta to Sydney

This trip with Ben to Thailand and Cambodia will be our eighth trip with a grandchild. We had been thinking about and planning this trip for months but could not book until Ben’s passport renewal came through in the last week of November. When it did, things had to happen quickly.

The temples at Angkor Wat have been on my list for a long time and after our travels in India and Nepal with G Adventures we had been considering one of their trips from Ho Chi Minh City via Cambodia to Bangkok for this adventure. It was not clear whether they could book us as a triple or would need to separate us for accommodation so, when I noticed on their website that some travel agents handled their packages, I looked further and found there were two agencies listed in Toowoomba. I emailed both, had a response almost immediately from one and nothing at all from the other.

When Kate at Toowoomba Cruise and Travel was unable to get a clear answer about triple accommodation either we moved to Plan B – fly Sydney to Bangkok and return and book a side trip from Bangkok to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat. She suggested some options with Wide Eyed Tours & Travel and we eventually booked return flights from Sydney to Bangkok and Bangkok to Siem Reap with private tour components in Siem Reap and Bangkok.

All was finally in place about 2 weeks before Christmas at which point I applied online for eVisas to enter Cambodia from Thailand. They were approved in the week before Christmas and on Boxing Day I was able to arrange our Cambodian eArrival documents online.

I had bought two eSIMs, one for Cambodia and one for other countries in the region, when they were discounted in late November. That left us with just our packing to do after Christmas in preparation for departure.

Majella and I drove to the Gold Coast on Saturday (yesterday), visited friends, checked in with Simone, Sophie, Harry, Lucas, and Ben and spent the night in a motel at South Tweed. We were up at 6 am (Queensland time), ate breakfast, packed, and were at Coolangatta to collect Ben just before 7 am.

Farewells said, we were on the road a little after 7 am with Majella driving south toward Sydney on the Pacific Highway. The road now is dual lanes all the way and mostly 110 kph. Once we passed the Tweed area it was away from settlements until we reached Coffs Harbour, a bit more than three hours away.

By then we had stopped once for coffee from the thermos Majella had brought (Ben had juice) and to change driver. We paused at Coffs Harbour to buy bread rolls for lunch which we ate an hour or so further on – ham and cheese with salad Majella had packed. We bought fuel at Taree and ice creams at Coolongolook. We changed driver there and again outside Gosford so Majella could drive the last stretch.

Majella listened to the cricket most of the way and when I was not driving and had access I read the news or did Duolingo. Ben relaxed quietly in the back seat.

We arrived at Nick’s just before 6 pm. Nick showed us the work he had done in his studio apartment that he is preparing to rent and we helped with moving some things to make room for storing our car while we are away. Ben cooked butter chicken for dinner while the rest of us worked on fitting and securing the covers Majella had made for the backs of Nick’s outdoor chairs.

We paused to eat the dinner Ben had made. That was tasty and we ate dessert of broken glass pudding that Majella had brought before finishing the chairs.

We chatted for a while before retiring. We have an early start tomorrow.