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1770 has this imaginative name due to the fact the Captain Cook first landed his Ship here in 1770, when he discovered Australia. Not to be confused with Captain Hook, who is a fictional character who chases after Peter Pan, the boy that never grows up. Although a worrying amount of people that I have met out here have got those two confused.
Many backpackers don't stop at 1770 as there simply isn't much there. For this reason I only booked two nights in a hostel. I got there on Monday night and left on Wednesday, so I only had one full day there. And that's all you need really.
As with all places I have stopped at so far on my trip, 1770 had a lovely beach. But people don't stop in 1770 for the nice beach, as you get them everywhere up the coast; backpackers only stop there for one reason - the scooteroo trip. This trip is inspired by all the biker groups that you see whilst travelling up the coast. On the trip you put on a load of temporary tattoos, pull on your leather jacket (even though it was a boiling hot day on the day I did my trip) and ride Harley Davidsons. OK, so they're not actual Harley Davidsons, they are smaller and are classed as scooters, hence why tourists are allowed to drive them without a motorbike licence, all you need is a drivers licence. But they are made to look like Harley's to add to the experience.
The trip is very cheesy, in a good way. When you first get on your bike "born to be wild" is playing in the background. My group only had 6 people in it with three guides. You get a short practice on the bikes before hitting the road. Once on the road we were asked to drive slowly sticking to the path for the first 20 meters before stopping. I didn't pick up enough speed and so wobbled, panicked, tried to put my feet down to stop myself (which doesn't work nearly as well when you're not on a push bike) and ended up in a ditch! Nothing other than my ego was bruised.
After this incident we were straight on the road. And I was feeling less than confident as we started off again. But soon I realised that Scooters are really easy to drive when you have a decent amount of speed going. And that turning wasn't the jotly action that I had been doing, all that was required was a slight lean. I started to really enjoy it and got itto the biker spirit of things once more. On the trip you see kangaroos, wallabies (small kangaroos) and lots of angry motorists who are less than impressed with the bunch of tourists blocking up the roads and mocking Australian Biker Culture.
You then head up to a look out point of the top of 1770 which overlooks the sea. By then we were all getting far more confident and were reaching speeds of 70km per hour. We then headed off to a cafe to eat wedges and watch the sunset. About 5 minutes before the sun actually set our guide said "right guys lets go" and I questioned why as the sun hadn't actually set yet. This was evidently a silly question, as sticking with the cheesy theme of the trip, my guide replies that we were all going to ride off into the sunset together. Brilliant.
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