Sydney to Byron Bay

G'day,

Sorry for the lack of communication this last week. I haven't had much time to get on the internet I am afraid but I have managed to find free internet access and so thought I should up-date you all. Unfortunately I cannot upload photos here so photos will be added at some point in the future.

Tuesday 23rd Jan was my last day in Sydney. That evening Jo and I went to check our emails and on the way back to the hostel I bumped into Ben Abraham who was in my maths class at uni! What a small world it is. He was passing on a bus, saw me and jumped off to say hi.

On Wednesday 24th Jan I left Sydney on the 7am bus to go to Newcastle. The weather was horrible and so I spent the afternoon wandering around Newcastle's shops and along the foreshore. I also popped in past the museum and art gallery. Can't say I was too impressed with Newcastle, especially in the rain. The hostel was lovely and friendly though which made up for it. I met 2 girls there from London, Eli and Helen. We had a good laugh in the pub that night and have met up at numerous places since! On the Thursday I went on a wine tour in the Hunter Valley. It was great fun and I tasted a lot of lovely wine and liquers. There are so many vineyards there, I think the number 140 was mentioned at some point! After the wine tour I got dropped off at the bus stop to get the 5pm bus to Port MacQuarie.

Friday 26th Jan: AUSTRALIA DAY!!
On Friday I got up early and went to the Koala Hospital. The Koalas were so cute and I was so tempted to adopt one called Henry. He was so adorable. Will def be adding a photo of him on here soon. Henry:

I then went down to the Town Green to see what was all on for Australia Day. There were a number of lovely stalls at the market and there was entertainment on as well. The entertainment included belly dancing and some bands. After wandering round there I went for a walk round the Creek. It was a lovely walk. I didn't see any koalas but I did see lots of bats. They are huge out here. I headed back into town and met Eli and Helen in the pub. We went for a wander around and found a company doing a dolphin, sunset and BBQ cruise so we signed up for that. After a quick shower we headed down to the shore and got on board out cruise boat. It was a great evening, too cloudy to see sunset but we saw lots of dolphins and they came right up to the boat! The champagne and the BBQ were good too! On Saturday morning I had my second surf lesson. It wasn't as good as the first but I still managed to stand a couple of times. I just kept getting frustrated! I loved Port MacQuarie. It is a lovely little coastal town. Wish I was staying there longer. I got the midday bus to Coffs Harbour. That night I had the BBQ that the hostel put on for us and then played Monopoly with the rest of the people in my room! I had injured my foot while surfing and could hardly walk so was glad to spend a night in the hostel.

Sunday was a very lazy day. After talking to Murray on the phone I headed down to the beach and stayed there until mid afternoon. I then went for a walk to Muttonbird Island. The views of Coffs Harbour were great.

In the evening we had pizza at the hostel and then I watched the Mens final of the Australian Open.

Monday 29th Jan: in the morning I walked the 3km trip to the Big Banana. They had a lookout there which also gave great views of the coast. They also have a sweet factory where they do demonstrations of how they make their sweets. It was really interesting as we got shown how they make the writing and shapes in their sweets - similar to rock. The afternoon was spent on the beach with Helen, Elli and their friend Amanda. In the evening we went to the pub for a pub quiz with lots of people from the hostel. Tuesday 30th Jan: I got the 8am bus to Byron Bay, we stopped off at the Big Prawn!

In the afternoon I spent it planning my next month of travelling. I have been given a good deal on my Fraser Island and Whitsunday Islands trips and had to give dates for them. So I now have everything planned up until about the 3rd March when I will hopefully start working in the outback! In my moment of madness when planning my trip I decided to book a skydive for today!

Wednesday 31st Jan: Early start this morning as I was picked up at 7.30am to go and do my 14,000ft skydive. It was fantastic. I absolutely loved it. When I came down I wanted to go up again! It was a lovely clear morning and the views were fantastic. The strange thing is that I was never scared! The Bridge Climb was more scary than the skydive. If I have the money I can see me doing it again nearer the end of my trip!

The freefall:

Landed safely:

This afternoon I am planning to laze around on the beach and top up my tan a bit more - not that it really needs it lol.

There we go, up-to-date now! Will put photos up at the first possible opportunity. Hope you are all well. Speak to you soon.

xxxx

Canberra

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the lack of news lately. I have just had an amazing week visiting Canberra and a number of towns and tourist attractions between Sydney and Canberra with Wayde. We left Sydney last Sunday morning and took the tourist route to Canberra. The drive would normally take about 3hrs I think, but we took 6hrs door to door!! On the way we stopped in past the Wombeyan Caves:

They were really interesting, unfortunately not many of the photos have come out as my camera isn't great in the dark!! There were a number of signs on the road to and from the caves reminding us to toot our car horn on blind corners. Being the mature adults that we are, we thought this was great fun and continued this for the rest of the week - oh the simple things entertained us! We then stopped to see yet another of Australia's Big Things:

On Monday morning we went to Parliament House and joined one of the tours there. It was very interesting. We then went on a tour round the Australian Institute of Sport. The first half hour was spent practising our basketball shooting, penalty kicks, and a number of other sports. We then got shown round all the halls and just for you Laura here is part of the gymnastics hall:

It was really interesting hearing about all the athletes training programmes. We then spent the afternoon relaxing in the Botanic Gardens before going up to the top of Telstra Tower, unfortunately it wasn't that clear and so the photos have not come out too well.

Tuesday morning we went to Cockington Green which is a display of miniature buildings and gardens of Great Britain - I felt right at home!! There was even Braemar Castle:

We then went back to the war memorial and spent a good few hours there.

In the evening after our meal we went up to one of the lookouts. It made Canberra look so big!!

On Wednesday we left Canberra and took our time coming up the coast. We went to the beach in the afternoon and stayed the night in Batemans Bay I think - I will have to confirm place names with Wayde as we visited so many places I can't remember them all!!

On Thursday we headed up to Berry where we stayed on Thursday and Friday night. On Friday morning we went riding in Kangaroo Valley. It was great to get back on a horse even though it was one of our hottest days away! On Friday afternoon we visited a winery and sampled a number of lovely wines. However the Crooked River Winery that we visited on our way home yesterday was so much nicer. Every wine we tasted we liked and of course we bought a few bottles to take home with us! We also stopped in past Kiama to see the Blowhole but unfortunately it wasn't blowing yesterday. However we still had fun climbing over the rocks .

We got back to Sydney last night and I am staying with Wayde and his family until Tuesday. There might be the chance of going with Wayde in his truck tonight/tomorrow but will have to wait and see what happens. On Tuesday I am meeting up with Jo to plan our Blue Mountains trip at the end of the week.

Wayde, thank you so much for being my personal tour guide for the week. I had a great time and I hope you enjoyed it too. And remember.............blind corner = beep beep, hehe!! :)

Take care everyone and thanks for all your emails.

xxx

The journey from the ouback and the start of Noosa week

Hi everyone,

Well we made it to Noosa - although it wasn't the most straight forward of journeys! We left Braidwwod at 5.15am and headed along the road via Longreach, Barcaldine, Alph and then stopping outside Emerald for lunch. We were doing well with our timing and so carried on via Springsure, Bauhinia, Moura, Biloela, Monto and then the problems started. By this time it was about 6.30pm. I was driving at this point and when we left Monot there was Lightening all round about us. IT was dry on the road though so we kept going, we had to get as far as we could before it got dark about 7.30pm. About 20-30km from Eidsvold the rain hit us. Within about 5mins I could not see the lines at the side or the middle of the road and so I pulled over at the side of the road. At this point I looked at the map and saw that Gayndah (the place we were aiming for) was about 80km from Eidsvold. Tom had been reading the map since I started driving at Moura and had missed the fact that we were to stop at both Biloela and Monto for fuel. He had said that when we left Monto we only had 80km to go and therefore enough fuel. Whereas we actually had 187km to travel from Moura to Gayndah. With only 1/3 a tank of fuel left at this point and stuck at the side of the road in torrential rain, high winds and thunder and lightening, I started to panic a bit. Another ute drove past and so we went to follow it. I was now just able to bake out the road markings but as we drove along we heard a huge bang - 'oh dear a burst tyre' was our first thought. Thankfully it was just a huge branch and part of it had stuck to the car! We made it to Eidsvold and the rain had stopped but we were too late for the fuel station. Also it didn't open until Monday morning. Tom then went to use the spare fuel we had in the boot but found out that the jerry can was empty - no use there. After a phone call to Chris we worked out that we just had enough fuel to get us to Mundubbera - the next town along the road. Although the rain has passed it was still a scary drive as it was starting to get dark and there were trees on the road. We made it to Mundubbera and found that the garage opened at 6am and so we checked in to the motel there. We then went to the pub and got pizza for tea. I was so glad to get a comfy bed as we had been on the road for 14 hours.

On Sunday morning we filled up with fuel and also noticed we had been sleeping across the road from the Big Mandarin - 2nd Big Thing I've seen now!! Impressed John?

Well, we then drove through Gayndah and saw a Big Orange!

Tom drove the first half of the journey and then I took over for the last half. When we passed through Cooroy there were trees, branches and leaves all over the road. Also a number of cars looked damaged. We made it to Noosa and arrived just before 10am. Our apartment wasn't ready and so we went down to the shops. It was when I was trying on bikinis that I heard on the radio that the storm was the worst that the area has experienced and the strongest winds on Australian record for Cooroy and Noosa. Thank goodness we did not travel any further on Sat night.

The rest of Sunday we spent shopping - I bought a bikini at last! - then we headed down to the beach.

While the kids have been with their mum I have visited a number of places. On Monday I headed to Maroochydore. On the way I passed the Big Pineapple. By the looks of things there are 2 big pineapples - the one I saw in Gympie and this one. The one I saw on Monday though is the main one apparently.

Maroochydore was really nice. I spend the day on the beach getting a tan - and slightly burning the skin that hasn't yet seen sun! After picking up the kids we went back the beach at Noosa and they built some sand castles.

Yesterday, I went back to the big pineapple and had a look around. I had missed some of the tours round the plantations and so I had a look at the display in the big pineapple which showed how pineapples are produced. I then went onto Mooloolaba and had a look round the shops on the beach front. I preferred here to Maroochydore but I think that was because I walked around and there was a good atmosphere. I then spent an hour on the beach before heading back to Nambour to get the kids.

Mooloolaba beach:

In the evening the kids wanted to go to the beach again. This time we went to Sunshine Beach and there were great waves there so we had great fun on body boards. Lets just say that it is just as well I kept my shorts on over my bikini!!

Today I came back to Noosa and on the way I went in past the Eumundie Markets. It was really good and I am glad that I did not have any cash on me or I would have bought so much!

Really looking forward to heading to Newcastle for Christmas. Will speak to you all again when I get there.

Miss you all

xxxxx

Hi all,

John I meant to write in my last post that I found one of 'Australia's Big Things', a pineapple in Gympie. Here is the proof for you:

Well, I have done my first few school runs. Yesterday Sarah took me to the water hole for a swim which I was looking forward to so I could cool down, but when I got there is was horrible muddy water and you sank into mud up to your knees, so I didn't get very far! Thankfully today when we went swimming, we went to the outdoor pool in Jundah. So much nicer!

Tonight Sarah is at a sleep over at the school, so I'm getting a chance to up-date this! Mainly been tidying up the house and helping Chris with some filing today. As Sarah is away tonight I might go for a run tomorrow before it gets too hot. It gets light so early in the morning that I'm awake from about 6am anyway.

Missing you all lots, wishing I had the cold weather you are all having. I spend most of the day trying to stay inside at the moment!

Hopefully speak soon
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