Sydney onwards

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The flight to Sydney was okay and, by this time Harry was able to get around with his rucksack on, which was good as otherwise we would have struggled to get to the hostel. The hostel room itself was very sparse with only a bed and an odd cupboard/box in the room. We used a hop on hop off bus to get around Sydney most of the time and, when we could not, we used the free shuttle. We were able to do a lot of the sightseeing activities including going up the Sydney Tower, having a tour of the Opera House and walking around in the botanical gardens. We also went on a cruise around the Harbour and took the bus over to Bondi beach, which looked lovely. We also spent a day going around in the Blue Mountains, which had amazing views. Unfortunately Harry's leg was not up to any sort of long hike, nor could he walk over the Sydney Harbour bridge but overall we had a great time in Sydney.

We then picked up the campervan which was a mission. We booked a time to pick it up, which you have to do to help manage waiting times and yet when we arrived there was still a massive queue. In the end it took about 3 hours for us to get the campervan. They also ended up giving us an abridged tour of the campervan, failing to tell us how the hot water, toilet, or grey water disposal worked! On the plus side their bad management did mean that we got an upgraded campervan as were not going to initially get one with a shower and toilet in it. The upgrade also means we have air conditioning in the living area which has been useful.

However, due to the long time we spent getting the van it meant that we could not get to our stopping point, near Jervis Bay as early as we wanted. By the time we got there, found a campsite and set up it was too dark to do anything but the laundry.

We spent part of the next day having a walk around the bay before we set off and headed South towards Eden. This was meant to be a long driving day and we hoped to make it a bit further, but we had to stop off to do shopping so stopped short of our original target of Lakes Entrance.

In the morning we had the time to have a walk along the beach before we set off heading into Victoria. We had a stop off just south of Sale and had a walk along a wooden boardwalk in a Marshland. Along the way we drove through an area affected by forest fire which had closed the highway a few days earlier. The scale of the forest destroyed was quite shocking and the area still smelt of smoke.

The campervan has been a bit of an experience, largely thanks to no-one telling us how the toilet worked which did lead to a slightly smelly afternoon one day before we fixed it. However, on the whole it has been a lot of fun. We are now just sitting down for a slightly odd meal of pizza, cooked using a frying pan and the grill that we were told was an oven in our campervan tour and only checked after buying the pizza; whilst watching the lightning storm over our heads in our wooded camping site.

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