been a long way

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hi all

again ive not updated you for ages so here goes

we left sydney and after getting very lost trying to get out of the city we finally made it onto the highway. we have discovered that tores (our van) does not like going faster then 80kph (about 50mph) and protests every time we try by flashing the "check engine" light so we have learnt that if you talk to him like a baby and dont exceed that speed he tends to be happy. with that in mind it has been a slow journey up to queensland.

we have stopped at many places and some gorgeous beaches but ill just fill you in on the interesting bits. nelson bay which is a couple of hours from sydney( or 3 days in our case!) is beautiful and we stayed at a great little camp site over looking the harbour so as the sun went down we have a great view of the boats. we came across some curious possoms there aswell who seemed to think they were sleeping in the van with us. we then continued our drive up towards some sand dunes and thought it would be a great idea to climb them! this resulted in some lovely pics but 2 very tired backpackers! well worth it though.

seen as our van is not very fast we have tried to take the A roads as appose to the freeway, not good in all cases. we ended up on an unsealed road which was winding up a hill for about 10 miles to which i could drive no faster then 10mph for fear of something falling off the van cos it was that bumpy-we were in the clouds at 1 point with then petrol light on!! pretty scary stuff but we live to see another day. that journey took us to port macquarie were i tried my 1st oyster- gorgeous- and visited a koala hospital. we then got to the camp site and there was a wild 1 in the tree.

through to coffs harbour (which was why we delayed setting off as it was flooded) we decided to go ice skating! we carried on through after that cos it was still raining. Byron bay was the next port of call. this is a lovely seaside town with a great beach and it has a light house which is on the most easterly point of australia with stunning views. this was easter weekend and our friends from melbourne and the gold coast were there to go to a music festival. we met up with them but decided against getting tickets as they were not cheap and it was still raining and very muddy.

we drove up from there ( shocked the van was still going) to our firends house on the gold coast. this stretch of beach goes on for miles and is great for holiday makers. our friend took us out to some waterfall rock pools that you wouldnt know was there unless you were local and horse riding which was great. nick has never been on a horse so was shocked when it began to canter back to the stables deciding it had had enough! he stayed on though.

so we are now in brisbane staying with another friend for a few days. we have been to the australia zoo which is owned by steve irwins family- it was very good- got up close and personal with yet more kangeroos, piglets,calfs,snakes, camels and loads more. we did a bush walk through the glass house mountains aswell and saw wild kangeroos and some amazing views.

brisbane city is nice, across 1 of the bridges is a manmade beach and pool which would have been fab if we had our swimmers on!

so thats about it folks will be bck soon. hope you are all ok x

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