We had planned to get up between 3 and 4 am, with an alarm set for 4am. With myself only having had 4 hour sleep two nights ago (due to taking Athena to a concert) I was still pretty tired and only woke up just before the alarm. I was still feeling rather groggy but managed to get up, showered and dressed. Only Christy was coming with us today. Athena had a school drama performance and didn’t want to miss two full weeks of school. So she will fly up on Wednesday night, in time for Christy’s birthday.

It ended up we left home at 4.45am, stopping first at McDonalds so Kevin could get a coffee (I had bought a tea from home). The weather was okay when we left, but the time the sun had come up and we were driving in Sydney, the rain had started. Funnily enough we had rain on our last drive up to Surfers in 2011.

As you can see Christy was able to get comfy and get some more sleep.

Having a mix of rain and sun, also meant got to see a rainbow. It was so vivid- but was behind us so hard to photograph.

We stopped for breakfast around 8am.

This place had been renovated since I was last here and I was SO impressed with the variety of fresh foods they had on offer.

I got a  veggie tortilla stack, which was delicious. I also picked up another tea for the road.

More driving.

And then a lunch stop at the Big Banana.

Kevin LOVES bananas so got the banana crepe – but as you can see it came with a ridiculous amount of cream and ice cream, most of which he left. But of course he had to get a frozen chocolate banana on he way out :-).

I went with the much healthier salad wrap, and Christy got pancakes.

A few more hours up the road there was another toilet stop.

And then we finally come to my most favourite part of the drive in far north NSW.

Firstly driving past the sugar cane fields.

There was a traditional stop at the Macademia Castle,

where we got the meet and pat a Golden….

Then my favourite view of the journey, which I think sadly will be missed when the new bypass road is finished.

It’s still stunning with all the clouds.

Once we get here it feels like the journey is almost at an end.

And, about an hour later, it is. I think this is the first time we have ever arrived in the dark.

I picked up our keys (we have a private rental) and we headed up to our apartment, once we got ourselves into the correct tower (there are three in the Chevron Renaissance).

The apartment is lovely and the view simply stunning.

The black space you can see is the ocean. You can just make out the waves on the beach.

I unpacked while Kevin sorted out the internet. Turns out I’ll be able to upload videos while we’re away so that’s a big bonus. We then headed downstairs, and are thrilled to discovered that this tower lift goes (almost) straight down to the shopping center below).

We found a Noodle Box close buy and g0t takeaway to eat back in the room. Christy and I ducked into Coles while Kevin waited, to pick up a  few essentials for the morning – namely tea, milk and biscuits :-).

We are all feeling pretty tired by now (which seems odd when we’ve been sitting down). But it’s been a long day. We enjoy our dinner while watching Air Crash Investigation.

If you’d like to see more of our day be sure to watch my vlog