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Published: November 22nd 2006
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At the top of Mount Oberon, Wilson's Promotory
The views from the top were well worth the climb! So we've reached our final destination in Australia having clocked another 3500 miles down the eastern seaboard and we've had a blast!
We hate to bore you with the nitty gritty details so we'll try to keep it as brief as possible!
Following on from our last blog we continued south making a whistle stop tour of the hideously tacky, neon lit, high rise Gold Coast. We didn't stay to long as it appeared to be the Australian equivalent of Miami. Not that we're knocking Miami or anything but we didn't come to Oz to see it!
Moving swiftly onwards we crossed the Queensland/New South Wales border into the hippy town of Byron Bay. We really liked "Byron" with it's chilled atmosphere and lovely white sand beaches. As we spent most of our time on the beach we decided to attempt the great aussie past time - surfing. Martin was a natural who managed to get standing on most occasions, on the other hand, I was completely hopeless, spending most of my time submerged under water. After an afternoon and a morning desperately attempting to stand I decided to leave surfing to people with more agility and balance!
Surfer's Paradise
Not the kind of "paradise" we were expecting! Back on dry land we headed to Coff's Harbour, famous for a huge fibre glass banana and terrible curries! Then on to Port Stephens for a night where we got eaten alive by mosquitoes and sandflies. Alcohol seemed to be the only cure for our insect bites so we made tracks to the Hunter Valley Wine region, where we did some medicinal wine tasting. Martin was the "designated driver" so couldn't take full advantage of free tastings as much as me! But we still managed to stock up with some really great bottles of wine.
With a fully laden van we headed towards the town of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. We were concerned for the welfare of our new wine purchases whilst travelling the dodgy roads and winding our way around terrifying hairpin bends up the mountains. Luckily there were no breakages! We did some nice walks around the mountains where we got to appreciate the spectacular eucalypt covered mountains and the 3 Sisters.
From Katoomba we headed back down the mountain towards Australia's capital city, Canberra. We took a look around the parliamentary buildings, where we were practically given a free reign to do what
we pleased. We could take pictures and aimlessly walk where we wanted with no restrictions, something you could never do in the UK without being put in the slammer! The city of Canberra itself is a vast, new city and nothing seems to be within walking distance. But there's lots of tourist worthy sites with an array of national monuments, lovely flower beds, lush green lawns and lakes - but it felt so staged and it certainly didn't have the feel of a capital city. We were quick to leave not because of the orderliness but because it was absolutely freezing - the sun was shining but there was snow on the mountains. brrrrr!
We headed to back to the east coast to the warmer seaside town of Narooma, where we watched the dolphins in the bay and caught a film in their traditional one screen cinema. Passing around the south east corner we were now on the home straight to Melbourne. We made a couple of night stops at the Gippsland Lakes and the very beatiful Wilson's Promotory National Park where we climbed Mount Oberon. We were rewarded with some fantastic views of the rugged coastline and numerous
white sand bays.
Our last main stop was at the holiday isle of Phillip Island. We spent one evening sitting on the beach, SAS style, with the ranger and a pair of night vision goggles spying on the fairy penguins. Watching them waddle up the beach to thier burrows was the most hilarious and adorable thing we've ever seen!
From Phillip Island we headed to Melbourne stopping off at some popular seaside towns on the Mornington Peninsular. On arrival in Melbourne we handed back our lovely camper van with 5000 extra km on the clock and immediately checked in to our hotel. It was so great to have a bit of room for a change and not to shower in flip flops! We met up with Jo Whitaker (who we used to work with at AXA) a couple of times for beers and a good catch up and also got to say farewell to some friends who we met on the Great Barrier Reef. From Melbourne we flew to Sydney where we spent 3 days seeing the sights and taking a well deserved rest on Bondi beach.
We're very sad to say goodbye to Australia having spent
The beach at Narooma, Victoria
We spent ages watching the dolphins from here! 3.5 months here. The people are great and so hospitable, the scenery is fantastic and most importantly the beer is cold!
Next stop Auckland on the North Island of New Zealand..... country number 9!
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