Alone again in the outback

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So sadly Peter and Rachel left us in the Blue Mountains - no longer could we afford the luxuries of hotel and hostel accommodation from here on its camping only.

So we found a reasonably nice campsite in the Blue Mountains after leaving Pete and Rach and hammered pegs into rock solid earth. The evening passed quickly as we started learning Spanish again after our lapse of several months!

The following day we went snake hunting - apparently there are large pythons in the mountains - with stout boots (and shorts) we set off towards the ruined castle (great pile of rocks) 6 hours away. 1.50 later we arrived (moving well this day) so we decided to climb up Mount Solitary another 6 hours away. A thin ridge scramble and fantastic views led to the top.
Unfortunately no snakes were found. Anne was pleased, James was disappointed.

A barbeque that night put us in good stead for the first day of proper driving - back towards Sydney (and annoyingly onto a toll road (cost $3.30)) and then down the freeway to Canberra. An afternoon spent in the War Memorial and then to a campsite where we watched the Greatest Looser - another crappy fat programme!

Chilled out in the morning around Parliament and the Cook Fountain before setting off down towards the Snowy Mountains and the highest mountain in Australia.
Camped on a lovely site by a lake and then drove up to Charlotte Pass and began a 21Km walk to the summit of Mount Kosciusko (something like that) 2228m. There was knee deep snow and was extremely hard work chewing through all the drifts. Eventually arriving on top to great 360 views after passing someone who had walked up the easy way backwards!!

Our next plan was for a road trip up towards Brisbane through the Outback. Several days later we arrived at the Warrumbungle National Park. Here we did further bushwalking and saw our first Koala. We camped in a very packed dirty campsite with lots of annoying kids tearing around on bikes - it did happen to be Easter Weekend - so James was tolerant of them! We also went to Siding Springs Observatory to see the telescope which Anne worked in connection with for her Astrophysics degree. The first proper annoying disaster of the trip occurred in perfect blue skies and calm conditions - our Terra Nova tent supposedly designed with Everest and the like in mind let us down by having one of the poles snap. Luckily thanks to James' ingenuity, skills, cunning, and ability to use the tent repair sleeve he had it back in working order within 2mins. However we will have problems if another snaps - Terra Nova are sending us another pole out to Sydney and will get a strongly worded letter on our return!

We made it to the Pacific coast at Bundaberg on Tuesday 18 April. Here we signed up for a Scuba Diving course over the next 4 days (Anne only needed to do a refresher course). We had to get Medical certificates which much to my disgust I wasn't allowed to fill in for myself. So we went to see this Dr in town - James has never seen such a disorganised Dr and was getting frustrated - James was going to ask to see his medical license but when I blew over 600 PEF he commented that I should have been a professional athlete so I let him off!

So yesterday we practised scuba diving in the pool and then went to a beach in the afternoon. Today with a 5am start we got a boat out to a reef and had James' first and Anne's 7th dive (but Anne's first ocean dive). Tomorrow James is going deeper. Anne saw two snakes (one over a metre and with a circumference of Anne's arms) - James saw neither, nor did he see any sharks.

This afternoon its back to the beach - hope all you guys around the world are having a good time too!!!

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