In any good road movie you need a good truckers' cafe, and our second week kicked off in the historic small town of Marulan, at Truckstop 31, an American-style roadside diner where Scott and Shaun's characters, Taylor and Alex, get to know each other over a greasy breakfast.
It was this moment where we realised that we had fortunately hired some very good natured actors as Scott remained in surprisingly good humour despite eating scrambled eggs for 6 hours!
Our final Sydney location brought us another beautiful day at the beach this time at Garie Beach in the Royal National Park. Beautiful that is if you like really heavy rain. Shaun joked that it was just like being in Blackpool on a wet winter's afternoon. Nevertheless we kept shooting the scene where the two boys swim in the sea. The camera crew and Ringan, the director, all wore wet suits but poor old Shaun and Scott had to brave the cold water and Scott's lips gradually turned blue. But as with the scrambled eggs he didn't complain once.
After lunch (and hot showers) we moved on to shoot a scene near the sand dunes. Access was limited by the fact that there was an area of Aboriginal sacred ground amongst the dunes, with ancient tools and shells scattered all around. The crew managed to get the scene shot whilst respecting the special significance of the location.
Just as the two characters head up to northern NSW and the glorious Byron Bay, so did the cast & crew. One immediately sensed a lightening of the mood all round as everyday home issues were left behind. Byron used to be famous as the hippy capital of Australia, but is now home to a 'better' class of resident, such as Australian greats - Paul Hogan, Olivia Newton-John and our sound recordist Guntis, but despite such esteemed locals the vibe remains very much in evidence. We also, luckily, seemed to have left the rain behind in Sydney.
Filming continues apace, with today's key scene of the meeting-up of the three main characters, Alex, Taylor and Sophie, in an authentic Backpackers Lodge. We'll let you know how that goes next week.
