Lady Elliot Island 26th/27th February

Hello all, a big blog for you all to read full of photos and incoming videos on the blog so keep checking back for more!!!

After a night of rain we were up at 6:30 as today we had a very very special trip ahead of us. We put down a very wet tent in record time. We were done and ready to leave our campsite/hostel combo to go to the airport. Today we had a scenic flight to Lady Elliot Island where we would spend 2 days and 1 night. It is an Eco Island Resort on the Great Barrier Reef. To get there we had to take 14 seater light aircraft to the island where we could snorkel the reef to our hearts content! Sounded perfect when we booked it and emptied our bank account!!! We waited nervously in the Airport hoping it would be everything that we expected it would be. We stole some airport wifi and were checked in and on our way! We got the back seats in the plane which we thought was pretty cool because we had so many windows to look out of! 

Fraser Island 25/02

Our trip to Fraser Island.

Today we had a day at Fraser Island booked. The bus was due to arrive at 7:30 and at exactly 7:50 it arrived. We had a short bus journey to the port, which was tiny. It was actually a boat ramp with a carpark. We jumped on the barge and it took us across to Fraser. Fraser Island is the biggest sand island in the world. So now w have been to the biggest and smallest sand island in the world! We were sorted into our groups and we climbed aboard a rather elaborate coach. There was a seat next to the driver an naturally I asked if I could have it. This later turned out to be not such a good idea. After asking a few questions about it and driving for 2 minutes I understood why it looked like it did.

(Man bit coming up) especially for Mark and Lindsay. 

This truck was the same spec as the support trucks used on the Dakar rally.
It had a 6.8L 340hp diesel twin turbo straight 8, however had 1250f/lb of torque. Basically enough to tow the moon. 
It had a 12 speed gearbox with paddles behind the wheel, 8 different diff settings, 4 drive settings 2 reverse drive settings (each with 4 gears). She even had launch control for when its stuck. if you were stupid enough to get it stuck!
It was a 33tonne monster.

Sunshine Coast 22nd

We spent 2 days on the sunhine coast and the weather was awful.. Luckily trip advisor had a solution! Aqua Fun Park!

Essentially it's a bit like total wipeout with a lot more swimming as all of the parts aren't connected! 

As you can see from the photo above we had glorious weather for this occasion. We put our swimmers on paid our fee and qued up until the next session, which  luckily was only 5 minutes! We dipped our toes into the lake and it was surprisingly warm. Most likely because it was cold out! The horn sounded and our safety briefing done we went for it throwing ourselves into the water and on to the first inflatable. We had really good fun but it's surprisingly exhausting pulling yourself onto the inflatables, this meant Myles was often dragging me on by my life jacket! We had a great time & hopefully will have a video sent to us of our time on there as they were filming a promotional video! Along with more close ups on the inflatable itself!

So there you have it, us pommies know how to do it in the rain! 

Lots of love to you all!

Game Day

This is a note from Myles! He received an email with the game day video..

When he told me this I had NO idea what he was on about until I watched it.

This is a link to Game Day 2013! (Make sure your sound is on & loud (from Myles)

http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=1CI14MDIlMg

(For those who don't know it's Sydney NYE Video from the crews point of view and we're in it!) 

First person to comment where they saw us wins! 

Brisbane - Friday 21st

This morning was a lazy morning spent using the internet and catching up with people which was very nice! We have planned a nice meet up with Anita when we get home! (Hi Anita first mention on the blog whoo) we had no plans until 12:30 when we were going to Camria to visit Liam and Henning from our G-Adventures trip across America! We drove down and had a lovely catch up and lunch with them both before having a drive around the local area. It was great to finally meet the rest of the family and catch up after such a long time!

Brisbane 18th-20th

We started our time in Brisbane a few days ago now. Our first night was spent with a great couple but it was only for one night. Very kindly they cooked for us and will be emailing them for their burger recipe because it was brilliant! Here's a little photo of our room for the night!It was really beautiful. We spent pretty much all evening with them chatting & the next day as well! We had a few plans for what to do after all of this!

1 day of wifi!

Yipee! We are couchsurfing in Brisbane and we have fantastic wifi!! 
Because of this we have had a whole blog update!
So you lucky people have new WALL.E photos, more videos and even more in the gallery for you to check out! 

Enjoy (:

Gold Coast 14th/15th/16th/17th

Time ticked on after our last blog and finally it was time for us to visit the Gold Coast! We had planned to check out the evening markets in surfers paradise and see where we went from there. The road to surfers paradise was horrible! This made Myles very cross. It took an hour for a 23 minute drive.. The road that took us to the Gold Coast was littered with traffic lights that never seemed to be green! Finally we arrived & could see the markets on the sea front. Next job was finding a park! Being the masters of not paying for parking we found a side street with road works and a hotel which was free to park in lukcily! It meant a small walk to the markets but it was all long surfers paradise beach which was a lovely walk. It was still pretty warm and the sea breeze was very much welcomed. 

We spent a good hour checking out all the stalls and tasting all the free samples! This gave us lots of cake and macaroons as well as beef jerky, nougat, jams and sauces and flavoured popcorns. This was much better than the farmers markets in Byron! Whilst looking at the stalls we saw the parking wombles in pairs for safety putting numerous tickets on people's cars. Shortly after we saw the Gold Coast 'meter maids' some very pretty blonde girls in gold bikinis putting more money in peoples parking meters. Something we had never seen before! Apparently it's a charity sort of thing that's been going on for years! We had a wonder down some of the streets of the Gold Coast and watched a few street performers before heading off home for dinner! We arrived back at our campsite by 8pm and cooked up a beef stroganoff which wasn't the best in the world.. Dinner quickly eaten and it was time for bed. 

15th

We had a slow start to the day which was a nice change and didn't leave the campsite till 11 where we headed back to surfers paradise to check out the sand sculpting competition they have on the beach. We had a good look at them an took a few photos (gallery when wifi provides!) here's one we saw in a shopping mall though! 

After spending a long time nosing around we headed for the sea! Within seconds of hitting the beach we were in the water. Being surfers paradise the waves were a little bigger than usual and they traveled in different directions which was strange. After spending a long time in the sea we sunbathed for a while and then headed for a wonder around town. 

After this we picked up some chicken drumsticks for dinner and headed back for the campsite. Feeling very hot dinner was deposited in the fridge and us in the pool! Tonight for dinner was BBQd Portuguese chicken with rice and mash potato. There was an addition of salad too that was donated to us by some lovely Swedish girls who had too much salad. This was very well appreciated as it took the spice out of the chicken a bit! This was followed by more Olympics, wifi use & bed. 

16th

Today was a special day because it is our 4 year anniversary. We had planned to go to dreamworld today but being the weekend we decided to have a late anniversary treat! 

So today was a very chilled out day. We started off using the wifi so Laura could ring home for a chat which ended up taking about 2 hours! Oops. Next we headed to our local beach which had lots of kitesurfing, windsurfing and paddle boarding. Sadly no where to hire these things everyone just seemed to be very keen! The water was beautifully calm as the beach was secluded & was a family beach as we found out when we were surrounded with children! We weren't there very long for this reason! With that we decided to make use of the campsite pool and sunbeds. We spent most of our time here chatting to other people. We headed back to our tent for an early shower and met 2 pommies from Milton Keynes who we eneded up talking to for a good hour and a bit about travels and what not. After this showers and Laura tried to revive her very dry and mostly dead hair to no avail. All this pool and sea salt has killed her hair making the need for a haircut even bigger! Nails painted and hair done, Myles shaved and we looked a bit less like campers! 

After a short drive back to surfers paradise again we were at Myles' chosen bar for dinner. And this is the reason,

The fat bastard challenge. 

The challenge was accepted and the plate was clean at the end.

 We rolled ourselves back to the car after this and felt very sorry for ourselves and headed home. Laura decided we needed to sing so put on U2 followed by Cher Believe. This was great windows down singing away until we got to some traffic lights where a very confused looking Ozzie who then gave Myles a big thumbs up, we waved and set off again! Once home we skulked off to our tent and had a very good nights sleep! (This is where the Laura part of the blog ends)

17th Dream World

Australia is known for the beaches but one place in particular. The Gold Coast. The Gold Coast has the feel of a very hot wealthy European City. Massive sky scrapers with a golden beach. However the Gold Coast is also known for its theme parks. There are many to choose from depending on what you like. From water parks to animal parks to movie parks to rollercoasters.

We elected to go for dreamworld as it had rollercoasters along with a waterpark, Laura also found BOGOF tickets!!

We left with plenty of time to spare only to sit in traffic for an hour. Eventually we got there and waited for it to open. We we're let in and ran around like kids. I made Laura do a couple of rollercoasters as she has a fear of them and I wanted her to conquer her fear. I found one that was just straight up and then back again basically flat then vertical then back to the flat again. We strapped in with Laura feeling a little overwhelmed. 3, 2, 1 and crickey!! What we failed to realise is that it was the fastest one on the Gold Coast. 0-100mph is delt with in 2.5seconds. That's 5.0G! It went vertical then back to the start. I looked across to see Laura in tears. Ok next one will be a little less fierce.

We went to the Madagascar rollercoasters which was much more civilised. So much so that we did it twice!! (Laura's choice!) 

then we had a few goes on the bumper cars as Laura loves those. This was followed by a log ride, trip through a small animal sanctuary. We felt brave and had another go on a rollercoaster. This was cyclone, not particularly fast but plenty going on. We climbed in and were strapped in. We set off and climbed up overlooking the park. Then to drop with Laura screaming rather loudly until she decided she felt sick when the screaming stopped. Then we got to the loops and the swearing started. We arrived back at the station and Laura got off telling me she hated me. Waterpark time it was. 

We got changed and again ran around like kids. Laura was much happier on flumes (so was I actually) there was only one flume which Laura didn't do (I did). You stand on a platform and it falls away from you, so you fall vertically and then it curves into a pool at the bottom at a speed of 45mph. We did all of them including the green room which is a funnel on its side. This was hilarious as Laura went backwards. 

(The green funnel is the green room!)

It started to cool off so we dried off by another rollercoaster and many many goes on the bumper cars.

As there was no line we just kept going. We finished off with another log ride (different than before) we didn't do it in the morning as there was a 45 min wait. After getting off we didn't know what the wait was for?! 

But because we were there at 5pm we just jumped straight on! We took some photos and jumped in the car. 

The drive home was only about 15 mins this time! We flopped on the sofas to catch up with the Olympics then went to bed and fell asleep almost instantly!!

Byron bay 11th - 14th (Happy Valentines Day!)

So onwards we trek to Byron Bay. All we know of Byron is that it's meant to be pretty and very chilled out. On the way Myles did a U-turn just to get a photo next to this hilarious sign! 

He loved it and still giggles at it. 

It was a pretty short hop only 174km (ish)

We arrived in Suffolk park where we would be staying with a chap called Charles where we would be 'couch surfing'

We had heard of this before and thought we would give it a go to take a break from camping and to save a few $$$. 

Essentially you send messages out and if people have a spare room or pull out sofa they can offer you a few nights kip in there house for free. Pretty good deal huh? We read Charles' profile and he seemed pretty nice at the age of 66. We were greeted and shown our room which had a lovely double bed! We weren't far from the beach either which was nice :)

We arrived late Tuesday afternoon so popped to the local grocery store which happened to be a SPAR shop. A chicken Kiev (as we had an oven) accompanied by some beans for dinner tonight. This was very yummy. We spent a fair amount of time chatting to Charles and the other couch surfer who was already there called Pedro from Barcelona. 

With that we watched some 2 and a half men on the tv with them and headed for an early night in bed! We hadn't slept in a bed in a while and it took us a long time to get comfy and get to sleep. Waking up feeling very refreshed we introduced Charles who is American to marmite. With this we found out that vegemite is made from what's left over when making beer! So that's why the ozzies drink so much they start them early on vegemite! This we did not know but found it amusing to know. Our first stop of the day was the lighthouse we had a drive around and took some photos before being hassled by a ranger because we hadn't paid for parking. We took our photos and left swiftly not wanting to pay $7 for a photo of a lighthouse. We got one out the window of the car anyways so har har. After this it was beach time! This was where we spent our entire day! We had our new factor 50 sun cream and the umbrella of wonder. The sun was blazing and the sea was beautiful! We spent most of our day playing in the waves it was heaven! 

After this back home again for the same routine but tonight we had pizza. 

Thursday presented an early start because we wanted to go to the farmers market in town. (Myles' input it was full of hippies) it really was. We didn't really like the look of the dark green health smoothies or organic soy stuff! We had a nibble of some crackers with nice sauce and cheese but that was about it sadly. We were a little disappointed so headed off around the town to check some of the local shops out. 

After an hour or so in the town we decided the beach sea was needed again and headed off for the beach. Today we met a couple from kent whilst in the sea who were very nice and traveling from Brisbane to Sydney. We left them a few pearls of wisdom before they left! We were there all day again soaking up the sun and waves whilst it was there! We had rain at one point but being pommies we stuck it out! 

Tonight we did a few bits around the house for Charles whilst he was at a meeting and booked our accommodation for our next stop which is the Gold Coast. Laura being the queen of discounts got half price tickets to dream world and white water world which was a bonus! Saves us around $89 which is a lot for us! All very good stuff! Speaking of stuff Myles cooked a beautiful spag bowl and after we were both stuffed! Feeling very full we headed off for another early night as it was a 6:30 start the next morning! 

A grumpy Pedro greeted us this morning as he hates mornings and thinks it should be illegal not to get up before it's warm and sunny. We all set off to the beach for something special... we arrived on the beach to see lots of women dresses in red. It was a flash dance! 

The flash dance was in aid of stopping violence against women. It was very good and will get it on the videos area ASAP. Once the dance was finished it was followed by an swim in the sea. All good except everyone threw all their clothes on the floor and ran in nude as some sort of a demonstration... We didn't quite get this part but hey we were in hippy byron so who knows! All good fun regardless. After this we headed back to pack our bags again and get on our way! Before we left we ruses some internet to try and get Laura working for deb with no results! Luckily Laura had a support number we're she was greeted with a very unhelpful man who said he would call her back.. Unlikely we thought. We set of for the Gold Coast after waiting 30mins for him to call back. A pretty uneventful drive and we got to our campsite with ease. Just as we found our spot and Myles got the tent out the phone ran with more internet support! This time a lovely chap called Jeremy. He was very helpful and got everything sorted with no problems! That's how it should have been done in the first place! Laura gave it a whizz and all was correct and working! Yahoo! Happy talk deb your debts will be decreased once more!

Because we crossed the Queensland boarder we lost an hour so had to wait longer for lunch! How rude. Tent up and it was time for a swim. Lovely warm pool this time and a few hours swim passed the time beautifully! We had a spot of lunch and then found the coolest playground in our campsite with a fixed bouncy castle floor! (Video to come soon!)

Your up to date with us now as we are watching the icestaking Olympics on TV currently! 

We have seen news of England which is looking like it will be under water within a week! We hope you are all safe and well. I'm sure we can get you in here as asylum seekers if it gets much worse!

Also happy Valentines day to you all!

And a special Happy Anniversary to Wendy and Mark! 

Lots of love to you all! 

Grafton 10th - 11th

I don't have any positive things to say about grafton really. We stopped here to pick up our post from Debra which was a day late hence the 2 nights... One of the top 7 things to do in grafton was visit the visitors center. It was boring. 

So, we spent most of our time playing in the pool of our campsite and watching top gear or using visitor centre wifi.

We did have a great Satay Chicken dinner though! 

On Tuesday our post arrived which was very exciting as this meant we got our shows back! Laura can stop getting bitten by ants and Myles can stop burning his feet on the sand at the beach. Also Laura got her new simcard so she can continue her work for debs accounting company and start being a debt collected on the road! This was all very exciting, but more so we were set to try our first 'couch surf' for 3 days in byron bay. More on that when we arrive in Byron!

Toodles, 

Coffs Harbour 6th/7th February

After another very wet & windy night we started early in Coffs Harbour. Neither of us fancied toast for breakfast so that was settled no breakfast. So with that we sorted our very wet tent and left for the Big banana! This is the big tourist attraction in Coffs Harbour. It's a giant banana outside a banana farm/plantation. They have a gift shop, rides, a candy kitchen and cafe with all things banana. We took our photos outside of the Banana as you must do and had a look at the bananary offerings in the cafe. Laura being an unbanana person wasn't very impressed. But Myles fell in love when he saw the banana fritter.. 

Swiftly he placed an order choosing the banana fritter with banana icecream, vanilla icecream, topped off with maple syrup! Yum. 

3 minutes later it arrived in all of its glory!

We then started to walk up the skywalk above the bananas.

When the heavens opened again, making a hasty decent we went to check out the candy kitchen! 

It was a candy factory.. They were making sticks of rock for a wedding when we went in there. We asked how they get the letters inside the rock and they make the letters in 3D but the length of the stick of rock which was pretty cool to see. We watched them for a while and then headed off. 

After this Laura was very excited for the next stop of CLOG WORLD. It had a mini Dutch village too which was lovely to look at. It even had a clog train! All just novelties really but cute none the less. After this we had a drive around the city and ended up in the harbour. We had a walk whilst it was dry around the harbour which was nice and we could see lots of fish by the gangway. We even saw a ray (Myles thinks it was a sting ray!) After passing the fishmongers and some restaurants food was on our minds. We hadn't had lunch yet so went to Coles to pick up some food. We opted for burgers for dinner and a cheese sandwiches for lunch. Bits acquired we headed back to our campsite for some lunch.

Oh and we also stocked up on tins!

 After this the tent and car was tidied and reorganised after 3 days of rain and throwing stuff in the boot! 

We hired some golf sticks after this and played some mini golf

And these were the results

After having quite a lot of fun it was time for dinner. 

Myles the BBQ king was out again cooking whilst Laura did burger prep work. I think they were quite a success? 

They tasted darn good! 

After this we used some more wifi and chatted with you family people for a while as well as Deb and Ian. Laura found the TV room and watched a bit of TV for a while too! 

Blog over goodnight all! X

Friday 7th February

We had a bit of a lie in today sleeping until 9! A slow start to the morning Myles had a shave and we had cheese toasties for breakfast as we needed to use up the cheese! This was a good change to toast and started the day nicely! We heard from Deb and took her advice and headed to Dorrigo for the day. We programmed the satnav and we were off. We had a lovely short drive though the back roads until we hit gravel roads! Only Deb & Ian would send us rallying knowingly or not! Haha

Myles had good fun driving the roads stopping along the way for photos.

It was truly breathtaking scenery and will share on the gallery when we can! This continued until we hit what the satnav thought was the national park. It was actually someone's farm! Uturn and a chat with a confused old farmer and we were off again this time headed for where we wanted to go! We visited Dangar falls and took more photos which were beautiful and Laura played in the playground whilst thinking about lunch. She had spied a nice looking pub on the way and made the decision to stop there on the way back. 

We took a look at their menu and Myles chose the BBQ bacon & egg roll and Laura chose the Cajun chicken burger with sour cream. Both meals exceeded our expectations and were lovely and would recommend it to anyone!  

After this we had a walk around the town and popped into vinnies (a charity shop) and Myles picked up a mug for his coffee 50c we don't want to break the bank here! We also knew we were in farm country because of this:

We headed back home via Bellingen. We stopped and had a look around the town before starting our road trip home. We had the windows down music up and had a cracking drive back to the campsite. We pulled up and got changed for the pool as we had sun today! After a little persuading Laura got in too! This wasn't our favourite pool as the shallow end was 1.5 meters deep! (Deb you wouldn't have liked it!) 

Showers and dinner followed. After a big lunch it was chilli beans for Myles and noodles for Laura. This was put to shame when a private school arrived for the weekend.. 

This was what they were cooking..

We felt ashamed because they then offered us leftovers as we were only eating beans and noodles! Oh dear what have we come to... We politely declined and went to watch tv for a while. Tonight there was a programme on how the Chevrolet Camero was made which was very interestingness. That brings us to now where Myles is on Facebook and I am blogging! So with that I bid you goodnight bloggers! 

Lots of love from sunshine land again :) x

Wednesday 5th - Port Macquarie - Coffs Harbour

Morning all,

We start today on a rather wet morning.

Last night we had torrential rain and very strong winds. I was up at 2 ish and again at 4am to check the tent was still anchored down. All the pegs were fine but the ropes were a little loose. So they got tightened and it was back to bed. Being outside in million mph winds and rain makes you rather cold so it was up to Laura to supply some warmth. She did so rather well, I just had to ignore the growls I got from her. Eventually the rain let off and we wrapped the tent up as fast as we could after shaking off the water. We packed up the remaining bits of the car had some breakfast and went. Oh I suppose I should say that we made toast with Laura's toaster that made its debut appearance in Rose Bay last year.

All packed we headed out for a WW1 prison camp. History in Australia doesn't really have  history as its no more than 150 years old unless its aboriginal. Either way this was a very interesting place. For a prison it was on a lookout point overlooking the sea. It had beautiful scenery. It wasn't like any other prisons we have ever seen before. Photos taken we called it time for lunch. We hatched out the pasta from last night that we had kept nice and cool in the fridge and tucked in watching the waves wash in over the rocks. Lunch finished with we programmed the GPS to our next location, Coffs Harbour. We made one or 2 detours on the way at an information point, put 1/3 of a tank of fuel in for £16 and hit the highway. It didn't take us too long before we got to our destination it was only about an hour. Still with grey skies and rain as it had been all day the GPS said we had arrived. We looked around and saw not a campsite but many houses. We had a drive around to see Coffs Harbour in the rain before eventually giving in and phoning the Campsite to ask how the hell to get there. The very friendly man said we were about 6km away. We had to drive past the big banana on the highway and take the next left. After a rather a lot of faffing around we found the place. We did the usual check in and found our spot. It was drizzling with rain so we decided to put the tent up as quick as we could before it rained any heavier, we did so with rather a lot of success. After the waterproof sheet was thrown over and started to be pegged it threw it down. We lept in the car to watch everything get a good soaking. The rain showed no signs of stopping so out came the iPhones and some games were soon played. Eventually the rain stopped and it was drizzling again so I ran around driving the pegs and ropes in the ground and we dived in. We sat hiding from the rain for a couple of hours. This was absolutely hell as all I had was Laura whining about how she needed the toilet and wanted to drive as it was raining. Eventually she took the umbrella and walked...

About half 6 we decided it was dinner time so used the campsite facilities, then spent the next 2 hours stealing Internet to publish these lovely blogs for you people to read!

Mileage since last blog: 166 miles

Mileage total: 859 miles

Port Macquarie

We awoke in an oven the next morning. By 8 we were out of the oven and were packing it away before breakfast had even been started. As Myles had been the camp stove king since we left home he taught Laura the ways of the stove and she created pan toast with chocolate spread for breakfast whilst he put the tent down. This was a pretty speedy effort as some huge black clouds had started to spit on us. Luckily no rain and we set off down the death road once more. Why the satnav couldn't have taken us on the road we left on I don't know! We had about 1k rather than 6 of horrible road and then beautiful Tarmac! We will never complain of a road again because that was just awful! It wasn't long till we arrived in our next destination of Port Macquarie. We were both looking forward to coming here as it was Debs home town and we had heard such nice things about it. We found ourselves in the main town centre looking for information. The information centre is in a huge glass building which was rather pretty. Information found Laura had one thing on her mind and that was the koala hospital, and also wifi. A brief stop at McDonalds for wifi and we had a phone call with deb to find out all the best places to go and see! After this we found our tummies rumbling and to your surprise it wasn't for McDonald's there was a rather busy pie shop just opposite and we had watched lots of happy people buying & eating pies and wanted to check it out for ourselves. Myles had a steak and mushroom of course and Laura had a sweet chilli chicken. Both were very scrumptious especially as they were eaten by the river. Whilst there Laura spotted one of the things deb had told her about. In the opening of the port along the coast were huge rocks. And all the way along to Town Beach they had been painted by people of the town, travellers and holiday makers as little memorials. Some were funny, sweet, beautiful and just weird. Here's a few we liked:

We walked all the way along the coast looking at the rocks and by the end had decided that we wanted to do one too! (The royal we meaning Laura) a trip to bunnings and office works and we were ready! As time was getting on and Laura was getting sad we finally went to the Koala Hospital. Laura had seen this in her lonely planet before we had even left England and knew she wanted to go. It's the only animal hospital in the world solely dedicated to the care of Koalas. We arrived a bit early for the walk and feed so had a look around the gift shop and read a few of the koalas stories. They were lovely and a bit sad at the same time. During the walk and feed we had a guide who explained about each koala and the work that they have done with it as well as their background story. One very odd looking Koala (Jerry I think) had scoliosis and had the strangest looking spine almost 3 humpbacks. Supposedly this didn't hinder him too much but he couldn't be left in the wild so is in full time care for the rest of his life. We watched oxley being fed and this made us think of Deb. She was very cute and kept grabbing the hand of the keeper who was feeding her. We were sure that she would fall off her perch but didn't. It was lovely to see them all so upclose and Myles got some lovely pictures of them which we will put in the gallery ASAP. For now here's a iphone photo 

We had a lovely time there and on the way out went to the Roto house. Which was an old house that the Flynn family owned which stretched all the way to the beach. We found this out from one of the volunteers who was there. She was a lovely lady but wouldn't leave us alone as she used to be a pommie! We now know her life story and didn't really look at the house so we don't know much more than that! After we escaped we plotted Into the satnav our new campsite. The best thing about this one was the HOT showers (and pool) we were very glad of both things when we arrived. After a quick trip into Coles to stock up food supplies we found out site very easily. We had a letter stuck to the office door as the had gone early with our camp location. Tent up and we were good to go. We treated ourselves today after many days of beans to burgers! And cheese and onions all in a very nice crusty roll... All very yummy! Dinner was soon devoured when Myles realised we were on a powered site and fired up the laptop! Not a lot happened after that mainly sleep. Oh and a bit of rain. 

Day 2 was started grumpily. Turns out the road by our camp site is a bus route and a lot of trucks go by! This resulted in an early morning. A positive because we got lots of hot water for showers and a negative because we were tired. After showers and being beautiful again breakfast and we booked another night in our campsite as we still had things we wanted to do in port. Firstly we headed back to the stones to start our paintings. We did the background layers and then took a drive around the coast whilst those dried. We went to see the lighthouse which was very nice and then to a rainforest. We went down into the indoor exhibit which was about aboriginal culture and we found some light boards with sand trays on top. Laura instantly started playing an drawing in the sand.  Myles followed but had a different approach on how to use the sand/lightbox. 

I followed the instructions and did animals and such whilst Myles did a palm tree and postman pats van. 

Never mind. This led us into the gift shop where we had a poke around before buying our tickets into the forest. We got a concession rate as Myles charmed the lady at the counter which saved a few $$.

We were also offered a guide to show us around which sounded like a good idea. Turns out he was a volunteer and showed us all the different plants and animals in the park. The first thing he told us was that there were huge disease carrying Mosquitos and to 'murder' them if they landed on us as they would make us feel very poorly! Anxiously we continued. We spent a good hour and a half in there and it was so cool! We were really surprised, we thought it would be muggy & hot but it was lovely. It was really interesting and we learnt lots about local trees, plants and indigenous culture. (Myles input, oh it was very nice) 

We toddled on back to our paintings to finish them which took another few hours but we were happyish with the results.

(Our rock photo is only on the camera so will be in the gallery later sorry!)

The second painting was a tribute to the Tara for Deb and Ian, which turned out much better and we were 

Once they were finished Myles took his rose bay scooter and scooted to the playground nearby to show me his favourite ride. It was a swingy turny seasaw thing which was fun but scary as we couldn't stop it. 

A shorty journey later and we were in Coles car park where Myles ran out of the car to look at a BMW bike that he wants. Which then led to chatting to the owner who was such a boring geeky bike person. Mince was then purchased for the pasta dinner and we were back at our campsite. Whilst cooking pasta Myles suddenly informed me there was a koala I did not believe him because 10 minutes before I was talking about how cool it would be to see one in our campsite. But low and behold if you want to see a wild koala our campsite is the place to be! 

Very excited we told our Ozzie neighbours who's tent the koala was above and they seemed more excited than us as they too had never seen one in the wild! He was very cute and making a slow climb up a tree for some leaves. We carried on cooking and they watched him for a good 45 minutes longer! Time was pressing on and washing up was done followed by a swim. Best part was the pool was heated! It was just right and we had a long swim Laura doing lots of lengths for once whilst Myles relaxed. This was disrupted by the putter patter of rain! 

A mad rush to secure the tent by Myles before Laura even knew it was raining. Car locked and laptop in the tent it was a film evening. We tried to watch a film but it kept jumping so instead we watched the Avengers which was good but we felt like only seeing Iron Man before we should have seen some others as there was lots we didn't quite understand.. (Sam you will need to supply information and films when I get home!) 

Regardless we enjoyed it even though it was hissing down with rain. Shortly after sleep followed. 

Night all! 

Since last Blog - 294.3 miles 

Total mileage - 693 miles

Lake Macquarie & Newcastle

An early start and we were headed to our next stop which was Lake Macquarie we had booked a campsite in Munmorah National Park. After a fairly uneventful drive and a stop for a McDonald's 30c cone each we had arrived. We couldn't figure out where we were supposed to camp and realised we had been allocated spot 10 in our email. With nobody to check in with we started putting our tent up. Luckily our spot was in the shade which was nice as it was a blistering hot day! With the tent thrown up as quickly as possible we took a trip to the local beach in the park called Birdie beach. We had a brief look around and with clear blue sky's had a paddle in the water. We didn't go much further as the waves were HUGE! We watched wind surfers and the like for a while and Myles debated whether to come back for the night to take star trail photos. We decided this was a good idea and headed back to camp for some tea. We had both been looking forward to our tinned rations we had bought in Nowra. We stocked up on Heniz goodness because it was all reduced to 90c a tin which is very good value out here! We each had a tin and some toast and we were very happy. We got ourselves ready for the evening getting changed into warm clothes and packing the camera equipment. This was very fortunate as when we got down there it was blowing a gale! It was so cold Myles dug a hole for us both to sit in...

We sat in our hole as it started to get dark and cracked out the laptop. We decided to watch Ted as we hadn't seen it in a long time. We also confused a bloke who was walking on the beach and could hear noise but couldn't see us! All good fun, think he was a bit confused though! The hole did a superb job at keeping the wind off us and we did a successful 2 hours of continuous photos without freezing to death. This was followed by a good nights sleep!

We were awoken to our tent being rather hot! The sun was streaming through the tent making an oven of us by 9am. A quick breakfast and we had decided to check out the rest of the beach and have a relaxing day on the sand. We walked along the sand towards the rocks at the other end to check it out to find that people up that end of the beach didn't regard clothes too highly... With that we went back down the other end of the beach to sunbathe! After an hour we were frazzled and made our way into the waves. The beach was unpatrolled so we were very cautious and didn't go to far to start with. But had good fun jumping in the waves. We got back and had more tinned dinner and chilled out until bed time. More star trial photos followed this time over our campsite which made sleeping and staying warm easier!

We awoke the next morning nice and early again and were feeling a little sore.. The sun had done work on us an we were a little pink in the face and a little sore on our legs! 

Never the less we creamed up and had a last few hours on the beach firmly under the umbrella today. 

We were headed for Newcastle today to visit blackbutt reserve which is a free animal sanctuary. We had a good time there looking at all the Ozzie animals. Laura got particularly excited seeing the koalas so close. This then was followed by a discovery in a tourist information centre of a place called the bogey hole. We loved the name and the picture looked wicked so we went. Essentially it was a man made rockpool you can swim in. All over Australia there are 'ocean baths' which are swimming pools that are filled with seawater and the waves crash into it which is lovely. The bogey hole was even better because the floor was all seaweedy and it was down in the rocks. Bit of a walk but very much worth it. We had a brief swim as it was freezing and by that point lunch was the focus. We grabbed the marmite and bread etc out of the fridge and walked into the park next to where are car was and made a picnic at the tables. It was a gorgeous day and the sun was filling the park. We relaxed watching the families in the park and the world go by until it was time to leave knowing we had to drive to our next campsite. 

After Newcastle we pressed on further to Diamond Head campsite which was right on the beach (sea a theme here?)

Shit (this is Myles' input into the drive to this campsite.) 

It was the WORST road we have ever driven on. The national parks website said it was an unsealed road. This was true, but unsealed roads generally aren't bumpy to the point where they caused 6inch Ruts between each bump! The poor Subaru coped very well unlike its owners who couldn't handle the rattling of the poor car any longer! 

We eventually got there after what seemed like an eternity ready to refuse to pay the park entry because we were so cross and Laura feeling car sick by this point. The man inside was so friendly we didn't feel so angry anymore.  We had a chat and went to set up our tent. Once the tent was up (we have mastered this tent already so it's pretty easy! When I say we I mean Myles he does most the hard work.) 

We took a walk along the beach, it was pretty nippy by now but all Myles could think about was driving on this beach as it was allowed. We saw something on the water line and went to check it out. Laura was convinced that it was a plastic bag with some seaweed caught in it. Myles tapped it with his trainer and it wobbled.. At this point we realised it was a HUGE DEAD JELLYFISH😰 Laura ran away swiftly and Myles just laughed. That was the end of that beach experience! We then realised we hadn't gotten anything for dinner so it was a depressing third night of beans.. Myles spiced it up with some instant noodles and spicy Myles sauce that Deb got Myles for Christmas. They were SOOO spicy! But a very nice change. Myles went and chatted to some other campers about there cool van with tent attached to the top whilst Laura washed up. After this we saw some wild wallabies in the camp and took a few snaps before heading to the tent. We played a few games of rummie before Myles got bored and called it a night. Still sore from sunburn it wasn't a fun nights sleep!

(We have been keeping a tab on our distance since we left deb and Ian's heres how we are doing so far!)

Distance since last blog - 120miles 

Total distance - 400miles

30th January - Collaroy Beach

After a surprisingly good nights sleep for a hostel Laura was up by 9 leaving Myles to lay in whilst she had breakfast. He was still asleep when she came back and hassled him out of bed to go to the beach. All packed we hired our free boogie boards for the day. Only 2 still had their strings attached so we opted for those. Myles had a nice black and orange one and Laura had a pink Wahu board. We were on the beach by 10 which was great because it wasn't too hot or busy. We put up our umbrella and headed straight for the sea. Myles was first in as it was a little chilly and got the hang of it straight away throwing himself into the waves. Laura was worried about her face going under so took a bit longer to get the hang of it. But we loved it! We spent a good 2 hours in the water today which is surprising the amount of seaweed that there was. It wasn't like English slimy seaweed it was sharp and felt like it was cutting your legs which reduced our time in the water. 

In between boarding we relaxed in the sun and buried each other in the sand. Laura was first to be buried and was buried in the hot fine sand on top. 

This then turned into Myles digging himself a sad place to sit in, Laura then started to fill the hole as he was in it resulting in just a head above the sand. 

The people next to us looked very confused but we couldn't stop laughing. Lots of photos and videos later Myles tried to stand up but couldn't. This again set Laura off giggling and filmed Myles struggling rather than helping. Eventually she helped to dig him out and he was VERY sandy. We both made the choice to go boogie boarding again even though the seaweed was everywhere. This got most of the sand off us both at which point we decided that showers were needed alongside a later lunch in the hostel. A skip across the road and we were back, handed in our boards and cleaned up. Feeling much fresher and down 1 hair tie that the sea claimed lunch was in order.

 We still had eggs left so egg sandwiches were created and enjoyed. Today the pool was open and seemed nice a little warmer than the last time we were in Debs but nowhere near as nice! We were both surprised that it was also empty. This is the strangest hostel we have been in its very quiet and no one seems to talk to each other. 

Dinner tonight was another chicken curry to use up leftovers but luckily this one wasn't half as spicy! We relaxed tonight by watching a new episode of top gear (very good) and a film from Aaron called the internship about google. Very funny film you should all watch it! We enjoyed it lots :) 

After this bed, night all! X