Australia

Hi everyone,

apologies for the incredibly long wait for this installment, but here goes....

Flew into Brisbane from Malaysia, bit of a shock to suddenly be in the western world again having been in Borneo for the previous few weeks! And it makes everything (like beer....!) expensive again! Had a day and a half in Brisbane itself before picking up a hired campervan to travel down to Sydney in. Apparently we were really lucky to find one available at short notice - most of them, were stuck up in and around Cairns because of too much floodwater everywhere! Which did seem rather strange when we were basking in (thankfully not too humid!) sunshine further south!

We actually went north for a couple of days from Brisbane (the long way round to Sydney - plenty of people we spoke to did point out we were going in completely the wrong direction!), dipped our feet in the Pacific Ocean...trying to avoid the little jellyfish!















Had a bad start to day 2 of our campervanning experience though....dead battery when we tried to set off in the morning! Plenty of nice fellow campervanners around tried to help with leads and jumpstarting...but to no avail! So had to get the RAC out to replace it for us! Good job that was included in the rental....maybe they know it happens all the time!

But we finally got going a few hours later than planned....to see some waterfalls (though we were wishing some of the rain in Cairns had made it down here....not much more than a trickle!) and to climb an old volcanic plug (yes, we're geologists, we found it exciting!) in the Glasshouse Mountains, with some really good views from the top...if a little hot and sweaty on the way up! made our way to our camping site for the night to find monitor lizards in the trees, but sadly no playpuses that were meant to live in the river nearby...















Back on the way south again, we headed to Daisy Hill Koala Sanctuary just south of Brisbane....but having eventually found it - damn Lonely Planet maps putting it in the wrong place - it was closed! and the koalas weren't there at the moment....but they had some trails through the bush which we went exploring...and spotted a wild koala in a tree to make up for it! He even managed to wake up enough to turn his head towards us for a photo! They actually do look like cuddly toys!















Stopped at some more "waterfalls" (still with virtually no water in them!), but saw loads of noisy, bright red and blue parakeets and found a cheese factory that had to be sampled! It ripened up nicely in the campervan over the next few days! And had hundreds of fruit bats flying over our campsite at dusk and a possum to keep us entertained!

Getting into New South Wales, waterfalls suddenly got more water in them! Went to a cool one in Springbrook National Park which has cut a natural arch in the cliff, and then drove to another extinct volcano (Mount Warning) for a very hot and steep walk up it!



















Thought we'd over-done the geology a bit so then became proper tourists and headed to Byron Bay...managed an hour on the beach before we got too hot and had to jump in the sea! Only discovered afterwards how burnt we'd got - even with 3 applications of suncream on ! Damn the lack of ozone down here! The problem was you didn't cool down in the sea - it was like going for a bath - a bizarrely warm 26 degrees! Saw a school of dolphins playing in the surf around Cape Byron too.















Then we realsied we shouldn't have complained about the weather.....!! After 4 glorious hot and sunny days, it then proceeded to pour down for the next week! Not the Australian summer we were expecting! And not exactly great weather for camping!

Went through various National Parks in inland New South Wales, and tried our best to avoid the downpours and enjoy it despite the lack of views in a lot of places! Managed to time it right at Cathedral Rocks - didn't get wet, got good views from the top, and saw 33 kangaroos! (yes, we did count, it was exciting when you'd seen 4...then they just kept coming...!)















We'd decided to drive the "waterfall way" before all the rain started, and at least it made the falls themselves pretty impressive! Just a shame that most of the lookouts were in the clouds! With no views whatsoever! So we headed back down to the coast at Coffs Harbour - at least we weren't in the clouds there, even if it was still raining! Ben was adamant he wanted to learn to surf despite the weather so had a lesson with an ex-pro one morning...and was surprisingly good at it! See the photo below for proof (it is Ben, honest!)!!















Kept heading south (apparently we were doing well with the weather....we found out that places we'd been a couple of days earlier were now under several feet of floodwater, and the horrific fires further south weren't affecting us), and went to a Koala Hospital where they help injured koalas recover....they were incredibly cute and you got to see them up close, but much preferred seeing wild, healthy one a few days before!















Found some beautiful beaches south of there, still a shame about the lack of sunshine, but at least it meant they were deserted! Found a use for the strangely hot sea - very good for warming cold legs up that are being battered by driving rain and gales!

Then headed back inland again to the Blue Mountains, and just happened to be passing through the Hunter Valley wine region....had to try a couple! Though since we were driving we were restrained and actually only went ot one of the 157 vineyards along the route! Shame on us! But was still raining, and were in the cloud by the time we arrived at the Blue Mountains....were getting rather fed up of trying to use a camping stove in the pouring rain, so since we were actually in civilisation, retreated to the local pub for pie, chips and beer!

Fortunately though, our main day across the Blue Mountains was slightly brighter than it had been, so we did actually get to see something! And again, the waterfalls were very impressive with all the water in them! And the clouds cleared to see the Three Sisters rock formation.

































So headed towards Sydney, had to give our (rather damp and dirty!) temporary home back! Went via the coast south of Sydney around Bondi Beach area - very pretty bit of coastline despite how developed it is then met some of the Thompson's old family friends who live in Sydney and were kind enough to put us up for a couple of nights. So this gave us chance to see Sydney itself, and the rain did clear through the day so we managed a walk around the sights....Opera House, Harbour Bridge etc....and hundreds of very noisy flying foxes (fruit bats) in the botanical gardens.




























Our last day in Australia we did the Manly Coastal Walk on the north side of Sydney Harbour, and the weather was finally nice to us and was beautiful! Very pretty coastline, little secluded coves (though we didn't really fancy a swim, there'd been 2 shark attacks in Sydney Harbour in the 2 days before we were there!), huge lizards....all in all a very nice end to our trip!