We left Moonee Beach heading north towards the Clarence Coast and decided to detour off the Pacific Highway and travel along the scenic route. Well the roads soon became extremely narrow and started to deteriorate quite rapidly with huge pot holes, well one should really say 'huge craters' and we wondered if we should have stayed on the main roads. As I have mentioned before the roads in this area of Australia are not in the best state of repair and with the top heavy motorhome it was not an easy drive. One had to decide whether to avoid the holes and have all of ones belongings spinning around inside the van or drive off the side of the road on to the waterlogged bank and get 'bogged down'...... - luckily though there were not many ... read more

So here we are back in a motorhome and we both felt it was so familiar and soon settled back into the ‘van’ life again. We drove north heading for Port Stephens, stopping at a shopping mall to pick up supplies and into Tomaree National Park where we had booked a campsite right next to One Mile Beach. As we travelled along we noticed an abundance of Gymea Lilies, in amongst the trees, we had seen some planted along side the roads in Sydney and Gaye had one in her garden but it had never flowered (that’s how we knew what they were). Well they were certainly flowering here and looked amazing as some were as tall as the surrounding gum trees - this giant plant had many sword like leaves and the flower spike grows ... read more

We spent our last couple of weeks in Victoria touring around, mostly on day trips - the weather was getting colder and wetter - winter had arrived. We have not missed the cold on our travels and now here we were in Melbourne and they was experiencing the wettest and coldest May/June after 14 years with hardly any rain and severe drought conditions! Over the road from where we were housesitting a small stream had come up over the banks and was partly covering the pavement. It had risen so quickly after a day of rain you could actually see it rising. The football pitch and children’s playground were totally underwater. Our neighbours said ‘not to worry’ as it never gets any higher than the pavement - famous last words! The stream was actually part of ... read more

We left Sri Lanka and arrived in Singapore just over three hours later and what a shock to the system it was. How different can two islands be in this part of the world - Singapore was so modern, clean and new compared to Sri Lanka which was so old, chaotic and raw. We were staying at an airport hotel as we only had a few days but it was an ideal location for our short time on the island. After collecting our luggage we took the shuttle train to the next terminal and then just walked directly into the hotel lobby where we were greeted with a friendly welcome by the reception staff. The hotel room was immaculately clean and tidy compared to many we had stayed at in Sri Lanka but that being said, ... read more

It was sad to leave Yala as we had so enjoyed our safaris into the National Parks even though the roads were extremely bumpy and bone jarring - the wildlife more than made up for all those aching muscles! The Chaaya Wild Hotel was excellent, well located with the beach and lagoon so close to our jungle chalet. In fact as we were checking out the the swimming pool area was a ‘playground’ for a group of monkeys enjoying the vista whilst no-one was around and a crocodile was sunning itself on the lagoon edge behind the pool. Several Painted Storks were foraging in the shallow water which was fascinating to watch. They immerse their half open beaks in the water and sweep them from side to side and snap up any small fish that are ... read more