On the road again - Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road

Sydney was chilly and cloudy when we arrived in Australia from NZ. Enough to make anybody grumpy. We spent a few days in the city - the highlight of which was breakfast at bill's. Then on our third day we caught the ferry to Manly and by the afternoon and return trip, the sun was breaking through the clouds to give us a taste of things to come. We enjoyed a spectacular sunset over the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. More like it!

We missed the freedom of our own wheels straight away. Unfortunately, our dollar didn't seem to stretch so far in Australia. No de-luxe self-contained en-suite camper for us this time. Oh no. Instead we signed up with Wicked Campers - those outrageously graffitied vans that make everybody stare. We ended up with a fairly tamely decorated, but pretty basic van for a fortnight. It was just like camping, but without having to put up a tent every night.

We struck out for the Blue Mountains in the blazing sunshine on our fourth day and felt like the adventure was beginning again! After being bitten on the bum by god-knows-what kind of insects, whilst using the one long drop toilet at our remote campsite on the first night, we were in no doubt we were back to basics.

The Blue Mountains were gorgeous, sniffing the eucalyptus-scented air and gazing at the vastness of the canyons was well worth the side-trip. We were soon back on the itinerary though and heading off down the Princes Highway before turning inland for Canberra and the hospitality of my Uncle Bruce and his family. We were thoroughly looked-after by the rellies. Graham got the drunkest he has ever been with my Uncle Bruce after a particularly fine BBQ and took a whole day to recover, which gave me some time to catch up with Bruce and my Aunty June who flew in from the Gold Coast to join the party. It was wonderful to sleep in a nice bed and be fed and watered and cared for by family after so long away. I could only apologise to my Aunty Julie for parking our controversial van in their driveway. It really did bring down the whole neighbourhood...

We didn't have time for a huge amount of sight seeing in Canberra, but spent half a day at the war memorial. Much more than just a monument, it has museum attached. The whole thing incredibly moving and very sensitively done.

After waving goodbye to the family, we really started to put the van through its paces. What better way to show off our fine paint job than to drive the Great Ocean Road? It was stunning in every way. From the strange craggy pillars and bridge formations thrashed by the waves along the shipwreck coast, to cliff-hugging twists and turns and remote lighthouses. We spent a lovely night camping at Johanna Beach, walking along the pristine sands with nobody in sight and watching the sun set from the top of the sand dunes. We visited lighthouses and had lovely fish and chips and watched surfers tackle the tricky conditions as we got nearer to Torquay.

The weather turned somewhere along the route and we had some horizontal hail and fierce winds. The van proved to be absolutely freezing. I really hadn't expected to be using the thermals and down jackets in Australia. Things started to warm up a little by the time we made it to Melbourne. Unfortunately, the van didn't. On our drive back to the depot in Melbourne, something went horribly wrong with the clutch and we decided we couldn't risk driving through rush hour city traffic without gears... Three hours later, our 'rage mobile' was lifted onto the back of a truck and driven off. A not-entirely-unexpected finale!

Once in Melbourne proper, we hit the cafes and strolled along the riverside and found an excellent second hand bookshop to trade in all our reading matter. We rode the trams out to St Kilda and Toorak and mooched around the nice parts. I thought about my Mum being born here and how she would have been pushed around these streets in her pram, before being taken back to England. After some amateur sleuthing we were unable to track down exactly which house or which streets, but I soaked up the atmos ready to bring it home and share it with her, all the same.

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