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Jellyfish to stay away from
Stings you and you stop breathing then drown...Great fun! Our final country is well and truly upon us - we have been in Oz now for about 3 weeks and have not found a better place yet than Coff's Harbour (loving it here). We have driven from Melbourne (great city) to the end of the Great Ocean Road (via the highway) and subsequently driven along it. It was beautiful although not as good as the hype would suggest (contraversial, moi?...). The spotting of a koala in the middle of the road just before dawn was a high point - he just wouldn't move...that is until P put the full beam on!!!!
The drive from there to Sydney was fairly uneventful - a few stops at some seaside towns and some good forest scenery (although a lot of it was smokin' due to controlled fires). From the ocean road to the Mornington Peninsula was good - involved a winery and lots of tasting. We did stop at a lovely national park site where there were wild kangaroos hopping around all over the spot. We managed to see a couple on the beach just after sunrise (yes you read correctly - we have seen a few of those you know).
Spider to stay away from
Kills you..DEAD...then it eats you... The beach was lovely and we stopped and had a chill out day involving sun, sea and sand.
In Sydney we parked the campervan and checked into a nice hotel over looking the harbour. On our first evening we walked down to the Harbour bridge and got some great night shots of it and Sydney Opera House - really beautiful. We treated ouselves to a good meal overlooking them. Tip: a lot of restaurants are BYO - make sure you take a bottle just in case!! We had to hike up the hill to the bottle shop and my shoes did my feet no favours.....the only hill in Sudney and we found it.
The following morning we met up with friends Michelle and Darren and baby Isabelle for brunch. They are heading back to England to live in Brighton - yay! And are warming up our flat for us before we get back. Was good to sit down and have normal "friends" conversation, rather than the whole "Where are you from; How long ae you here; where have you been" rubbish. All good stuff....
We did a little sightseeing after that - as you do - to
Grey Nurse Shark
Will only eat you if it thinks you are dead...right then! the Opera house and around Circular Quay and The Rocks. Great market selling all sorts; some buys included - strawberries coated in chocolate on a stick, magnetic earings and boomerang shaped fridge magnets - priceless.
As we were walking back to the ferry, via the great street performers, it began to rain....and didn't really stop for a week......
Our sightseeing was put on hold - while we whiled away the hours watching movies. Ventured out again to Darling Harbour and had dinner in Chinatown. Decided to move on, and headed west to the Blue Mountains. We had heard a lot of good things about these so were looking forward to it - however luck was not on our side this time and the rain prevailed.....Couldn't see any of the scenery which was very disappointing as Bill Bryson had similar conditions which brightened up. Oh well, was not to be - so we headed for the Hunter Valley instead to drown our sorrows in copious amounts of wine.
Bought A LOT of good wine, plenty of Shiraz and Chardonnay - next day hit and miss.....
We got back to the coast - Nelson Bay area - and
Roo's in the morning
watching sunrise with the roos. found the best campsite (Koala Shores) right on the water with a great pool which we made the most of the next day as the sun was out 😊 Near to a lovely town called Lemon Tree Passage where we had a great lunch and tore ourselves away.
The rain soon caught up with us as we reached Port Macquarie and we realiosed it was actually moving up the coast....bugger.
We made it to Coff's Harbour via a couple of lovely places like Elizabeth Bay, and sat in a chippy on the harbour watching the rain. Decided to stay put for at least a couple of days to let the rain overtake us - which worked. We had a surf lesson in the rain the next morning, but after that it brightened up 😊 happy again.
Found a great campsite at Emerald Beach and booked in to do our PADI Open Water Diving course.....which we have just passed!!! Had a good 3 days getting back into working days and using of brain cells. The first day we spent in the pool, and the last 2 days havebeen at sea - in the Solitary Islands where we saw
12 apostles
start of our road trip! loads of fish. It's supposed to be beter than the Great Barrier reef....will wait and see as that is now on our list of things to do. Have really enjoyed learning to diveand the dive school here is geat (Jetty Dive Centre), really friendly instructors. We will go away from here having achieved something...and with water in our ears.
So, sorry you all had to wait so long for this blog, but we have been pretty busy as you can see....more soon...maybe!
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