Australia Part II

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Oz Week 4 - up to Brisbane

Tuesday 24th November
Keen to get going we headed over to Port Fairy (what a name!) for brunch (Liz had the best Eggs Benedict ever at one of the cafés) and then travelled back towards Melbourne via Geelong and then a further four hours north up the Hume Highway to Wangeratta where we stayed in a nice campsite next to a river. Whilst we were aiming to put in lots of miles (or should that be km here in Oz?) you do feel like needing a break after 7 hours driving so we were thankful to get to the campsite around 7pm.

Wednesday 25th November
Another big drive day as we were planning to get up to Brisbane in two days time. However we took a bit of a detour off of the Hume highway to go to Wagga Wagga (Aussies call it Wogga) which is where Jonathan, (Liz’s bro-in-law) has been applying for his state sponsored working visa. It seems to be a nice city of approx 200,000 but a very long way from anywhere else (4 to 5 hours from Sydney). There is a big Air museum there. It is surrounded by fields of wheat and by brown/gold hills of the Riverina.

We then headed further towards Sydney taking time to stop off at Exeter on the way! Although we think this one is more of a village size like Bickleigh rather than the city we used to live in. We then headed around the outskirts of Sydney and drove to Blackheath on the edge of the Blue Mountains national park. Our campsite had a friendly Kukaburra that provided us with evening entertainment.

Thursday 26th and Friday 27th November
We wanted to have a look around some of the suburbs just outside Sydney so we drove through Penrith and called into Windsor (no flag up so the Queen wasn’t at home) and then drove through Gosford on our way to Woy Woy. We had a bit of a look around Woy Woy which is a commuter town an hour north from Sydney. There are lots of pelicans here and it is quite low lying as part of an inlet with lots of water close by and a nice beach at Umina.

Next we headed up to The Entrance - a big lake right on a beachfront.

The Entrance looked very nice with massive lakes, lots of pelicans, ducks, herons and the beach not very far away, although some warm 34 degrees C weather! Whilst parts of it looked lovely with the lakes, fishing and birds it was a shame that the town looked very touristy (Torquay style) with lots of cafés, ice cream parlours and fish and chip shops, so maybe this was an incentive for Andy to head off for what he claimed was a long run along the beach? (Andy - It was honest!)
We had a great pitch at the caravan park - 2 metres from the water’s edge, and adopted a family of ducks for the 2 nights we were there. They were lovely to watch and if any other duck came within 3 metres the parent ducks chased them away protecting the ducklings.

Saturday 28th November
Heading further north we called into Port MacQuarie after driving through Swansea (slightly different to the Welsh version).
In Port MacQuarie we were at a large campsite on the beach and by the breakwall. The breakwall stones had lots of graffiti on by a large number of visitors to the area - kinda funky with murals painted onto the rocks by a variety of visitors e.g. a big fish with something like ‘The Mc Kenzies here 1987 - Pete, Jen, Jack & Ruth’ etc…
The main street of Port MacQuarie was nice and was palm tree lined and had a lovely view across the water.

Sunday 29th November
We decided to go and visit the Port MacQuarie Koala Park which was really good and as we went first thing on Sunday morning we had the place to ourselves. We saw kangaroos (red ones, albino ones, grey ones and little joeys), koalas, emus, snakes, crocs, casawrays, peacocks, dingos, and a wombat. You could also stroke the koalas at various times during the day - which was fun! In the reptile house they had many snakes including the worlds most poisonous, where its venom is deadly enough can apparently kill about 45 people with one dose!

Looking to get up to Brisbane we headed onwards and reached Woolgoolga for late lunch - very nice beach and a big Sikh temple.
We then entered Queensland, which even though it seems to be in line with Sydney has decided to go one hour behind the New South Wales time zone, so this helped by giving us an extra hour to travel some more miles for the day. Entering an area known as the Gold Coast we saw lots of very unexciting high rise tower blocks next to the sea, so it seems that they have been trying to fit as many in as possible with views of the sea but have succeeded, in our opinion, in making the place look worse! This wasn’t helped by there being big signs/lights next to the roads advertising events and ‘great view’ so it seems to be pushing it self as a cross between Las Vegas/California/Florida. So before we discovered any theme parks we decided that we would only be staying for the one night and would be heading towards Brisbane early the next day.

Monday 30th November and Tuesday 1st December
Following recommendations in a Queensland guidebook we found a campsite that was quite close to the middle of Brisbane (the Northside caravan park). It was close to a bus route that took us into the city centre in about half an hour, helped especially with the bus only roads and long tunnels they have built under the city which enables the buses to speed around without getting caught in too much traffic.

We thought that Brisbane was very nice but a little too hot for us, with it being 32 C at 9.30am! This obvious affected Andy’s desire to get his 7 mile run done at 6.30am! Overall we really like Brisbane the city was nice with a good mix of shops and we enjoyed the ferry up the river. Thankfully it is not overly skyscrapered like Gold coast but as it has some highways running near the river in the city centre and seems to be lots of concrete!


Oz Week 5 - Heading from Brisbane to Sydney

Wednesday 2nd December
After exploring Redhills, which is just north of Brisbane we headed down the Pacific Highway back into to NSW and stopped off at Byron Bay, which whilst being a bit touristy has more of a Gower/Swansea feel with big beaches offering surfers lots of waves and then nightclubs kicking to life in the evening, so a bit like a trip to Llangenith and then popping into the Escape nightclub in the evening!

We then travelled further south and stayed at the Woody Head campsite near Iluka in the Bundjalung National Park. It was a nice campsite next to a beach with big waves and rocks and you can have a BBQ or campfire there, which we couldn’t in Queensland due to fire warning levels.

Thursday 3rd and Friday 4th December
Continued south along the Pacific Highway via South West Rocks for lunch where the sea was a nice aquamarine and very nice white sandy. So we must return here sometime.

We headed on to set up camp in Shoal Bay just next to Nelson’s Bay in Port Steven area. This again had lovely white sand beaches and green headlands. Yes we liked this area a lot! We did the walk up to the top of one of the headlands, which gave great views up and down the coast and out across the bay. There was the base unit of an old WWII radar station and a gun turret up there with details of how long it was operational etc. Liz also went for a couple of swims in the clear sea….a little cold but soon warmed up. Very refreshing. Nice restaurants there too.

Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th December
Getting close to returning the campervan on the Tuesday we headed to the Northern Beaches in the Sydney area and spent two nights at the Narrabeen caravan park. This gave us the ability to have Tim over for a cup of tea in our van and then all of us got invited out for dinner at a local restaurant on the sea front with old Ritchie family friends, The Parkers (Jim & Jenny). It was great to catch up with them both again as Liz last saw them in 1996 on her backpacking trip with Louise. We enjoyed a nice meal and then walked back to their place - right on the beach front at Narrabeen. They had bought 2 apartments next to each other and moved in for their retirement. They had knocked through from one apartment to another and created a large living area. We enjoyed seeing photos of all their 8 grandchildren and hearing the latest news of their family. Also they got out the African drum that Liz’s Dad had given them many years ago as a wedding present.

On the Sunday we went for a long walk along Narrabeen beach and then back along the lake side (where we hope to hire kayaks one day).

Monday 7th December
This was our last day and night in our van and we headed back down south of Sydney (after visiting Berowra north of Sydney), to Kiama to check out the blowhole there and the pretty town.
We found a great campsite (East Beach) and had a pitch right on the waterfront/beach. Our neighbours in their posh new caravan were good fun and also gave us handy hints on where to settle in Sydney….which is where we had decided we were going to base ourselves initially as the job opportunities were best for us and we had a good group of mates already living there.
We had a neighbourly cappuccino with them and ended up having some port to drink too! So a good and late night!

Tuesday 8th December
We wandered round Kiama (nice town) and saw the blowhole with water shooting through regularly. Then we headed back to Sydney via Bulli and along the bridge that they have built over the sea next to the cliff edges (cool drive).

We then dropped the campervan back after cleaning it etc and after no problems we got a taxi and headed to Greenwich, Lower North Shore to Tim’s. This is where we stayed for 2 weeks whilst we house hunted, hired a car (great deal via ‘no birds’) and generally sorted our stuff out. Tim was a great host and we enjoyed some Aussie BBQs and met some members of the Outdoor Club at one of the many Sydney Rowing Clubs, where we had a Christmas meal. We also went to Carols in the Domain….which is a crazy, packed park area of land near the Botanical Gardens, where lots of Sydney families had gathered to watch the show. There was a big stage with some Aussie TV celebs and choirs and then with us being not able to escape the spirit of the valleys, Katherine Jenkins appeared to sing some carols. During the current Sydney Festival they also host Opera in the Domain and there is Jazz in the Domain too.

After lots of searching (and help from our relocation agent, Tim!) we had found a nice place to live in. So on 22nd December we moved into our first Aussie home in Rozelle, with great water views of Parramatta River and Iron Cove Bay. The shipping had cleared customs, so we arranged delivery on the 23rd and given the number of boxes it seemed that we were going to be doing a lot of unwrapping this Christmas. It is a nice place so we hope to host some of you here soon!

Well it has been a great trip here taking in lots lovely places such as Rio de Janeiro, Machu Picco, the Amazon, Washington DC, LA, Fiji and the Gilbert Islands (Kiribati) before our arrival in Australia. We then saw some great places like Kangeroo Valley, Lakes Entrance, Melbourne, the Great Ocean Rd and the 12 Apostles, Brisbane, and Nelson’s Bay just to name a few before deciding that we were going to be based in Sydney to start with.

Well we suppose whilst this is the end of one travel blog, we are starting another with our adventures in Australia, so we hope you have been enjoying the blog of our travels and watch this space!

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