Call me sad, but I was kind of excited about coming to Wollongong. As it turns out, it’s not that flash! :-) It’s sprawling and industrial and there seems to be quite a lot of dodgyness. After looping through the town, we drove straight to City Beach where dozens of surfers were catching a wave after work. This area is also a serious boot camp location and there were people training and working out literally everywhere.It made me feel quite lazy for just walking around! After strolling along Marine Drive and around the town centre, we drove out to the university to find a place to park our van and be ready for our morning swim at the campus aquatic centre (ie free sleep and shower). Wollongong’s students are truly spoilt with the awesome recreation facilities ... read more

First of all, happy 80th birthday to Sydney Harbour Bridge!It’s a shame we won’t be there for the celebrations, but be sure to make up for it when in another 10 days or so. We had planned to stay the night in Ulladulla (Australia does have some funny town names) but when we got there it didn’t really float our boat, so we continued on to Jervis Bay and set up camp at “Green Patch” within Booderee National Park. This spot is BEAUTIFUL! It reminded us a little of Mount Buffalo and, like Mount Buffalo, it rained as soon as we arrived. The weather had cleared by lunchtime the following day and we went for a couple of nice long walks along the beaches and through the rainforest. We saw heaps of animals: kangaroos (eating grass ... read more

To make the journey from Moruya to Canberra more interesting, Dean programmed the “shortest” (as opposed to the “fastest”) route into the GPS. 50km of gravel road later, we were back on tarmac – our bones still rattling from the drive!:-) Canberra really is a nice city. If you like modern cities, definitely pay it a visit. Although it’s relatively new, it has an interesting history. When Australia’s colonies were federated in 1901, a decision to build a national capital was included in the constitution. At the time, parliament met in Melbourne but by 1908 this site (diplomatically situated between rivals Sydney and Melbourne!) was chosen as the location of the new capital. American architect Walter Burley Griffin won the competition to design the city. Walter certainly liked symmetry and geometric shapes, as is reflected in ... read more

Nestled in the Eurobodalla National Park, Congo is a small cluster of houses on the estuary and a couple of long surf beaches. This very pretty and peaceful area has a basic camping area that has a very eco friendly feel to it. Because the recent high rainfall, the estuary and the sea are dark brown from all the mud that’s being washed out. There is also heaps of foam being washed up onto the beach… more than enough for a foam part or two! We went for a long walk on the beach, having fun wading through the foam.We just hope it’s a natural phenomenon and not a result of all the rubbish that we’re putting in our oceans. As tempting as it would have been to stay in Congo for the night, we could ... read more

That rain is back! With a vengeance! I thought I knew what torrential rain was, but my eyes have now been opened. We stopped for the night at a motorhome park in Tathra and woke up to find a lake outside our van. The lovely and hilarious (30 or so!) German exchange students that were camping next to us had made makeshift rain ponchos out of bin liners. They must have thought this weather was normal for Australia! We were also joined by a further 50 school kids from Canberra whose previous camping site had flooded.The wetness factor aside, it was amazing to watch the wild ocean and appreciate the beauty of the elements. With Tathra being only little, we headed onwards to Bermagui. En route, our road was closed off due to flooding. We gave ... read more