On Thursday 5th March, we arrived at Sue & Adrian's 4-acre block in Castle Hill and were greeted by their friendly Kelpie-crosses 'Cleo' and 'Snip' (who hasn't been!). We made ourselves right at home with Annelies & Thomas in their spare room and Alex & Mark occupying Daniel's room, who was away with the Army Reserve. Friday saw Alex & Annelies have a “girlie morning” at the very eco-friendly Rouse Hill shopping centre while we all visited the Castle Hill library in the afternoon. On Saturday morning we caught up with Jane plus Ian, Penny and their daughter Mia (all ex-Darwin friends) at Bronte Park and then had lunch at the Bogey Hole Cafe. After lunch, Mark, Annelies & Thomas went for a dip at Bogey Hole itself, which is a natural pool at one end ... read more

On Sunday we headed from Jervis Bay to Kangaroo Valley, but decided to take a short detour to Berry and catch the Sunday morning markets along the way. The markets are held on the 1st Sunday of each month and were bustling. We re-stocked our honey and jam supplies and also bought some sweet corn. We also had gourmet sausage rolls for lunch followed by Dutch Poffertjes served with caramel and cream. Yum! We left Berry and drove to Bendeela camping and picnic ground set on the banks of the Kangaroo River. We arrived mid-afternoon as the last few lots of weekend campers were packing up to leave. It was a lovely grassed area with lots of space, although we had to dodge the duck and wombat scats and make sure we secured our food at ... read more

We headed north with no real idea of where we were going to stay, but Thomas had developed a toothache so we decided to try and find a dentist in Ulladulla. The staff at the local Library, which also staff the Visitor Centre, were very helpful in giving us directions. In the end, we decided to stay in Ulladulla for a couple of nights and do the walk up to Pigeon House Mountain the next day. We stayed at Mollymook Caravan Park so the trip from Murramarang National Park to here ended up being our shortest drive for the trip to date. Thomas' toothache was resolved with his first filling (in one of his baby teeth), so the next day we headed up to Pigeon House Mountain (719m above sea level). The mountain was named by ... read more

On Valentine's Day we said goodbye to Kosciuszko National Park and drove north to Tumut and then headed east, taking the back way into Canberra via the state forest trails and Brindabella (although we don't actually recall passing through Brindabella)! We arrived in Canberra, stopping for lunch at Commonwealth Park, and then drove to the Canberra South Motor Park in Fyshwick. We decided to stay for a week and this place offered us the best rate as well as being centrally located not far from town. On Sunday we met up for lunch at Commonwealth Park again, but this time with the King family (Tracy, Brett, Daniel, Grace & Chloe), whom we had met at Lakes Entrance. While there, we visited the National Capital Exhibition. Afterwards, we drove into Queanbeyan to catch up with some ex-Fiji ... read more

On Friday, we left Mallacoota, making a short stop at Gipsy Point near the start of the Mallacoota Inlet. From here we headed north and crossed the border into New South Wales. We drove into Beowa National Park(formerly Ben Boyd National Park) and stayed at Saltwater Creek camp ground. It was still quite early, so we set up camp and headed to the beach, which was less than 100m away. The camp ground was nice but NSW have a completely different policy to National Parks to every other state we've been to so far. They charge daily entrance fees (mostly $7 but $16 for Snowy Mt NP, off-peak) for most of the parks and usually charge ADDITIONAL camping fees (that rival caravan park fees) for sites with very basic facilities. They also don't offer a 'parks ... read more