Farewell to Oz

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Yes, finally I can write that. After what seems like months of trying we finally managed to sell our van (for a tidy little profit) and hightail it across the Tasman sea.
But before blogging our escapades in NZ a quick whistle stop rendition of what we got up to in our last few weeks in Oz (hoping that Travel blog does decide to throw another wobbly and chuck out any more entries!!!).
Well we left airlie beach after a power boat tour of the whitsundays and headed down to Bundaberg (via Finch hatton gorge for some attempted (but ultimately unsuccessful) platapus spotting). Bundy is famous in this neck of the woods for its rum so it was only fitting for us to take the distillery tour and sample some of the liquor produced here (as if we hadn't been sampling it enough throughout our time in Oz!). We then headed south to catch the free sailing at Morton bay near Brisbane on Wednesday.
Happily we ended up on the booze cruise ship, the Vallina, skippered by the awesome bloke, Steve (who amazingly used to live in Wotton Basset, just a few miles from our house!). After a pathetic performance in the 'race' (we actually were going backwards at one stage!), Steve invited us for a weekend trip whale watching. The weekend was probably the highlight of our Oz tour (although we failed to see any more whales) and Steve even let us stay on his $600,000 the night we arrived back to save us the drive to a camp site (he really is a brilliant bloke). As a thankyou we thoroughly cleaned the thing the next day (including the removal of a horrific new lifeform found in the bottom of one of the fridges!) before heading down to Sydney for, what we hoped would be, the sale of our van and a flight out of Oz.
As it turned out there were no backpackers in Syndey and there were easily 30 vans slowly dropping in price to entice the (complete lack of) buyers.
After a week or so (during which we met up with Ross and Meredith from the truck in Africa for drinks and Mike from the second part of the truck trip (who we managed to inadvertently lock out of his own house!)) we decided the best course of action was to head back north to Brissy again.
Another free sailing afternoon (again on Steve's boat) and a couple of weeks in the free campsite in Petrie (with background soap opera regarding the homeless residents and their possible future evictions (most were really nice people who were just down on their luck)) and some good times spent with our new friends, Tim and Kathi (they were German), we finally managed to sell the van and get out of Oz (via flights down to Syndey and a night sleeping at the airport, prior to which we spent a night, not sleeping, in a 32 bed dorm in Brisbane's City Backpackers (never again!)).
Just a quick mention that we did, whilst near Sydney, spend a couple of days in the blue mountains including one night deep in the woods in Megalong valley completely on our own and Linz also got a $185 fine for doing a U-turn at the lights (which is, apparently, only permitted where signs tell you so). The police officer said that there was no need for us to pay it (having turned off the microphone) as we were leaving the country and were completely untraceable!!
And finally we're here in New Zealand....but that is for another blog.
Take care all,

Linz and Bri

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Comments

[Debbie Heath]

There you Are!
Glad to see your ok.........thought you'd been ambushed by a kangaroo who'd dragged you into her pouch and skippy'd out of there mate!