It's now June and we have been back in New Zealand for over 4 months! (seems like forever some days!) Time to round off our travelblog which we didn't quite finish before we flew out of Perth on January 27, 2009, bound for Wellington. Last time we wrote, we were in Perth for Christmas - spent the day with Blu's brother Ross, his wife Laurin and her family. Funny not to be spending it with our kids- first time ever without one or both on the day! Boxing Day we went down to Bunbury to spend the day with niece Ros [View Full Entry]

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On 14 March we went up to the Hokianga, a beautiful region about 4 hours north of Auckland, to attend Katy and Brett's wedding. We had a wonderful weekend - it was a beautiful wedding set right in the heart of this beautiful and unspoilt region of NZ. The wedding venue was on the waterfront of the Hokianga Harbour and the sun came out just in time for the big event. And best of all, most of our extended family were able to be there to celebrate with the happy couple! We would like to share our photos with other wedding [View Full Entry]

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Our arrival in Exmouth signalled the start of the final leg of our trip around Oz! From Exmouth, the road heads south all the way down to Perth around 1200 km away, where we began our journey on February 1st. Of course nothing is that straight-forward, we had a couple of side trips planned on the way through! Exmouth is a friendly relaxed kind of town and just north of the town is where the famous Ningaloo Reef begins. Ningaloo is Australia's largest fringing coral reef, approx. 300 km long and very close to the coastline - there are lots of [View Full Entry]

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We moved on from the Kimberleys to the Pilbara region on 24 November. Like the Kimberleys, this region is characterised by its huge vastness, long empty roads and areas of vibrant scenery - the colours!! Magnificent ranges in different hues, rich red earth and bright blue skies. Stopped overnight at Eighty Mile Beach, which was pleasantly cool with the seabreeze. The beach is a great place to meander as there are a huge variety of shells of all shapes and colours - unfortunately we can’t take them back to NZ! It was turtle nesting time of year and at dusk, we [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in W.A. on the 10th of November. Along with the “Welcome to Western Australia” sign, crossing the border also involved a thorough inspection of our car and caravan - you can’t bring fruit, veges, honey, seeds etc. into the state and they even confiscated a fruit box we had been using for storage - even though we pointed out the label on the box showing it had come from WA in the first place! Our first stop was Kununurra, the Queen of the East Kimberleys, and the surrounding area of Lake Argyle and the Ord River - now this [View Full Entry]

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25 October - off to the Top End! We set off early from Devil’s Marbles and covered 680k in about 10 hours! Not much to stop for apart from a beer at the Daly Waters pub and easy driving on long straight roads. The Daly Waters pub is pretty quirky with its walls chock full of all kinds of stuff pinned up by travellers over the years - heaps of ID cards, jandals, bras, money, knickers and so on. Got to Mataranka just in time to hear the last of the NPC Final from Wellington (through 2ZB on the computer) - [View Full Entry]

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The first thing we saw on crossing into the Northern Territory on October 9th was the 130 km road signs! NT didn’t have a speed limit at all until fairly recently - not sure why this changed but it is now 130! We thought that might be a bit hard to achieve with our caravan in tow so gave it a miss and stuck to our usual speed of around 90! Our first night was spent at a 24 hour roadside rest stop - there are lots on the main NT highways as the distances between towns is so great - [View Full Entry]

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We set off on Sunday 28th Sept from the green of the Tablelands and straight into dry arid savannah country, heading northwest towards the Gulf of Carpentaria. Driving into Gulf Savannah country, we noticed a definite change in climate, from cool nights and mild days to a hot, dry climate. First stop was the Undara Lava Tubes. The tube-like tunnels were created from lava flows after a huge volcanic eruption way back in time. We thought the tour was a bit over-rated and it was relatively expensive, but it was still a pretty interesting place, and I think the only one [View Full Entry]

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September 12 - we drove down to the Atherton Tablelands and set up camp at Lake Eacham which is about 6k from Yungaburra, a rather quaint and historic village. We struck a good one here - a small family-run caravan park (only 7 caravan sites and a number of tent sites!), complete with a resident pig and emu, and heaps of free range hens, ducks and assorted birdlife. Peter, a Lake Eacham resident, usually takes Josie the pig for a walk around the camp every day. We settled in for a fortnight (even put up our caravan annexe and made ourselves [View Full Entry]

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We set off on our Cape York adventure on 26 August, leaving our caravan at Mt Carbine for the duration of the trip. Our first stop was at Laura to see the 13,000 year old Quinkan aboriginal rock paintings at Split Rock. Very interesting, but almost overshadowed by Blu’s close shave with a snake - he almost trod on one walking down from Split Rock! Our first night was spent at Mary Valley Station, we pulled up there mid afternoon to be greeted by Lawrence, a young Parisian traveller who was working at the station. We asked him where the campground [View Full Entry]

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