The finest harbour in the world

After a few days in the Blue Mountains, we made the steep descent to Sydney, just in time for Andy's birthday. We stayed in a hostel in Newtown, a lively suburb just west of the city centre, where we splashed out on a celebratory Thai meal that was utterly divine.

The weather turned out beautifully too and we did all the standard sight-seeing in crisp autumn sunshine. This of course is the famous Sydney harbour bridge.

We took a ferry ride across the harbour to the zoo, which gave us some great views of the opera house, which juts out into the harbour on Bennelong Point. Bennelong was an aboriginal man who befriended the first governor of New South Wales, Arthur Phillip, after he landed in Port Jackson (now Sydney Harbour) in 1788 to found a penal colony. Bennelong lived in the governor's house for some time, but also resided at the spot where the opera house now stands.

The zoo sits opposite the fabulous city skyline (the opera house is on the far right).

At the zoo we got to see some of the Aussie critters that we've missed on our travels (echidnas, skinks, tasmanian devils) and some more exotic beasties too. Andy found himself most at home with the gorillas – spot the difference!

From Sydney we headed south to Botany Bay, where Captain Cook first landed on the Australian continent in 1770, as commemerated by this monument. It was here that the ship's scientist, Joseph Banks, recommended Arthur Phillip found the penal colony eight years later. When Phillip landed at Botany Bay however, he found the soil sandy and therefore unsuitable for cultivation, so moved his fleet 20km north to Port Jackson and settled there.

We cycled around the bay, keeping an eye out for whales, as this is their migration season, but without any sightings.

At this unassuming camp spot in Kangaroo Valley, some 160km south of Sydney, we unwittingly stumbled across a pod of militant wombats. We were just drifting off to sleep in the back of Edna, when the van began to shake quite violently. In our sleepy confusion, we thought that someone might be stealing the bikes from the rack on the back or that we were the subject of some prank. When the shaking stopped after half a minute and we were unable to see or hear anyone, we ventured out of the van to take a look around. We could see no signs of human life, but our attention was drawn to a sinister munching sound nearby. The beam of the torch picked out a big wombat about 5 metres away. He stared at us coldly as he chewed his grass. Twice more that night we were shaken awake, each time with increased vigour. In the morning we were able to see what we had failed to notice when we parked up: that we were camped in wombat city – dozens of wombat holes surrounded us. We had clearly impinged on wombat turf and perhaps were lucky to escape so lightly!

Now we are heading down the south coast of NSW towards Victoria. It's still just about warm enough to be surfing (without wetsuits), so we're putting in some time on yet more fabulous beaches.

Exhausting Edna

Our reasons for staying 3 nights in Bundaberg were twofold. First, Edna had developed a fault with her autogas system (Edna is duel fuel – she can run on either petrol or LP gas), and it was the Easter weekend, so we had to wait for the garages to open. Second, it was raining hard and there was major flooding on the roads ahead at Maryborough, so it was probably impossible to proceed anyway! So what do you do in Bundy in the rain? Go to the Bundaberg Rum factory of course! Unfortunately the giant bottle in the car park was the closest we got to the action, as the price for a tour turned out to be more than treble that quoted in our Lonely Planet guide. For $50 we could get a perfectly good sample from the Bottle-O on the corner, thanks very much!











So we were left to scrape the barrel of Bundy's wet-weather tourist attractions. Feeding the baby animals in the mini zoo in the park helped us fill ooh, at least 20 minutes!















A tribute to the local hero, the Bert Hinkler Hall of Aviation turned out to be a surprisingly interesting way to spend an afternoon. From humble beginnings testing a home-made glider on the beach near Bundy, Hinkler went on to become the first person to fly solo from England to Australia in the 1920s in an Avro Avian. He learned to fly in an Avro Baby like that elegantly modelled by Andy in the picture.









So deep was Bundy's love for old Bert that the town saved the house that he had occupied during his time in the UK from demolition by not only buying it, but dismantling it, shipping it to Australia and reassembling it brick-by-brick in the museum gardens.














The LPG problem was swiftly fixed once the bank holiday was over so we splashed southwards through the rain towards Brisbane and the surfing meccas of the Sunshine and Gold coasts. The brash, crowded metropolis of Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast was in stark contrast to the serenity of the surrounding perfect beaches.











We managed to pick up a pretty good second hand surfboard at a car boot sale for $40. After we bought a new leash (for a whopping $25!) to stop our new acquisition getting washed away from us, we hit the waves, or rather they hit us... relentlessly.












After a few days of getting pummelled by monstrous 2 ft swells we have started to get the hang of it and don't look too silly when we are out there. Unfortunately one of the larger waves was responsible for the destruction of our trusty body board that has travelled with us from Western Australia – Jenny was riding it at the time.











There are a good many creatures over here that can do you some serious damage so when we spotted this 6ft python slithering down a suburban street we gave it a wide berth. If that wasn't enough to put you off going outside, at Coffs Harbour we were called out of the sea by the lifeguard when a shark was spotted in the bay where we were trying to surf (I guess the shark was too crippled with laughter to attack us).















Luckily the only bites we've had so far are of the mosquito kind. However even mossies can cause bodily harm – Jen couldn't open her eye for 2 days after a particularly impudent one bit her on the eyelid! You can't put repellent everywhere!























At this point in our trip – approx 17,000kms in – Edna's exhaust decided that it had had enough of being shaken around on dirt roads and its insides imploded, blocking itself off. The resulting pressure blew a pipe off the engine. Fearful of doing any more damage we called out the RAC who towed us to a garage who made us a new exhaust from scratch.













We got to sample more surf culture in Byron Bay – after a morning on the beach we decided to walk up to the lighthouse because we were told that the views were excellent – unfortunately just as we reached the summit on which it stands, a torrential rain shower blew in – we couldn't see a thing and got wetter than we did when we were in the sea!















Further down the coast we crossed into New South Wales and headed inland to cross the famous Hawkesbury River at Wisemans Ferry. We camped at a sublimely peaceful spot on the riverbank. The Hawkesbury was, in the words of Aussie country singer John Williamson, “my kind of paradise”.












From the Hawkesbury River we climbed into the Blue Mountains along Bells Line of Road. We stopped at the Mt. Tomah botanic gardens for sweeping views of the mountains and a fascinating tour of the Proteaceae garden – a Gondwanan family of primitive flowering plants, which includes the Australian genera Macadamia, Banksia and Grevillea.















We managed to snap one of the zillions of mischievous lorikeets that zip around the forests getting a feed at a banksia flower.





















At Govetts Creek Gorge near Blackheath we got our first close-up look at the spectacular Blue Mountain scenery.















A walk along the clifftops led us through moist banksia forest, with water rushing past on its way to plummet over the cliff edge. You might note that the onset of autumn combined with altitude led Andy to don long trousers for the first time since Christmas!



















The best walk we took in the Blues was at Wentworth Falls. Here the path followed a steep flight of steps carved into the cliffs down to a narrow shelf jutting out halfway down the cliff-face. For several kilometres we walked along the shelf through the mists of waterfalls plunging from the rim above.

















Then we climbed back to the cliff-top through the sublime Valley of the Waters, which was stuffed full of – you guessed it – more waterfalls!





















Sydney's the next stop on the tour. We promise the next blog won't be so long in coming...