Bye bye Brisbane, hello Lamington National Park. As it was only a short drive over to the Park we had a bit of a sleep in the day we were leaving Brisbane. With my trusty navigator by my side we merrily headed out of Brisbane with a slight detour to a scenic lookout over the city. The views were pretty spectacular but the sun behind the thick layer of clouds was in the wrong spot so we didn’t get any decent pics. As we had the opportunity we decided to make a quick side trip to Surfers Paradise of the Gold Coast. Perhaps get a bit of surfing in, maybe catch some rays, anything beachy and relaxing. Some bad planning on my trusty navigators part got us stuck in morning rush hour traffic in Brisbane and ... read more

Apologies but this blog should have gone in before the Blue Mountains one. We drove further down the coast from Port Macquarie to Myall Lakes National Park. The drive was pleasant and took just over 2hrs. To get into the Park from the Northern end we had to catch a ferry. This is probably the smallest ferry and shortest trip we will ever take. The ferry couldn’t have taken more than 4 cars and the whole trip was probably less than 100m. The national park consists of a number of lakes and also takes in about 20km of coastline. There are a number of campsites located throughout the park. You aren’t able to book any campsites so I was a bit worried in case they were all full up. This was a needless concern as we ... read more

Well......................................needless to say that the weather did not improve once we arrived back to Airlie Beach, but we were rejuvenated after a relaxing time on a tropical island and a quiet, comfy sleep. Although, I have to admit that I did not even make it a week before I had to have a break from the tent. In my defence, if it wasn’t for the rain, I think I would have lasted longer! Long Island is a beautiful tranquil island and I would love to go back (when the sun is shining). We caught a ferry from Airlie Beach and it took about 40mins to get to Long Island. We spent the last day relaxing in Airlie beach. The weather DID NOT improve, still rainy, so we decided to take a drive to Cedar Creek Falls. ... read more

Our flight to Cairns was fine - except it turned into a 3 hour flight (as Cairns is 1 hour behind Sydney) and the seats were cramped for Billy (not much space at all) We picked up our car without any problems - a lovely Toyota Corolla. We had decided to spend the day up in Port Douglas (as the weather wasn’t the greatest - and we were hoping it would improve) Port Douglas is about an hour drive (65km) north of Cairns - a lovely drive along the coastline with some beautiful beaches along the way. Port Douglas has a 4 mile beach lined with palm trees. Very picturesque and would be even better on a sunny day. They had cordoned off an area in the sea for swimmers - weighted nets to stop ‘stingers’ ... read more

We have just spent our last week in SA with my family in the Drakensberg - Castleburn (Southern Berg). We had such a fun time. Greg, Debbie and Caitlin; Graham and Carryn joined us for the weekend. Dite joined us later in the week. We tried some flyfishing - Duncan caught about 40 fish!!!!!! (he put most of them back). Duncan had brought tubes with him and we tubed down the river - not much fun cos it took about 2 hours and we collected a few scrapes and bruises along the way. After 2 nights of hard rain, Duncan and Billy decided to tube the river again.......................... it took them 30 mins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! On Tuesday my dad had booked for us to drive up Sani Pass (4x4 style) It was quite hair raising (and bumpy) but ... read more