Tina & Rob’s excellent adventure

After 22 days in our camper we are back in the city. We have a beautiful apartment in Woolloomooloo, Sydney a block away from the waterfront. It has only been 2 days since our arrival here but we already love this place. The public transportation is wonderful. We take the bus to the waterfront and jump on one of the many ferries that take you all over the city or to one of the many beaches. So far we have visited the opera house, Darling Harbor and Watson’s Bay. The weather is also cooperating to make life even more enjoyable. A far cry from the misery that a lot of people here are experiencing with the flooding and fires.

After 6 days the rain finally cleared up and we wrapped up our great camping adventure in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. Part of the Great Dividing Range, it has fantastic scenery with gorges, cliffs, and the famous Three Sisters rock formation.

We also visited the Billabong Koala Rescue to finally see some koalas. They are almost impossible to see in the wild because they are nocturnal and actually quite small. We were able to pet a koala and hold an orphaned wallaby joey.

We spent a few nights in Giraween National Park– known for its landscape dotted with huge granite boulders. We hiked the rocks, followed water fall trails and looked for wildlife. The rain has caught up with us here so we headed back to the coast to Port Macquarie about 370 KM north of Sydney trying to find some sunshine. No luck here– the weather is absolutely miserable… torrential rains from a cyclone driven tropical depression. We are talking 10 hours of straight downpour! Luckily we have a very comfortable camper and have stayed dry. There are quite a few people here that had their tents flooded and do not know where to stay.

Our journey so far has taken us up the eastern coast of Queensland “the sunshine state” with its pristine beaches. Enough of sun and surf; we decide to head for the hills and end up at Bunya Mountain National Park. We are greeted by the resident wallabies (we thought they were kangaroos until a local set us straight). Beautiful hiking here through the rain forest and grasslands. We plan to visit more national parks as we make our way south to Sydney

It is amazing that after only 9 hours in an airplane you can land on a different continent and be back in a western culture of Fish and chips. It boggles the senses. “OZ” as Australia is known is a huge land with “heaps” of sunshine and beautiful unspoilt beaches. It seems everyone is a surfer. We have hired a camper van to explore the east coast, stopping at caravan parks along the way. Australia at the moment is having weather extremes from a heat wave in the south to massive flooding in the north. We are stuck in between in Queensland enjoying the beach life. Here are the photos from our journey so far. The last two shots are of the “everglades” part of the Noosa  River.