Coffs Harbour to Canberra

The school holidays have started so we have fled Coffs Harbour. It occurred to us that we can't really say we have 'done' Australia when we haven't visited the capital, so we decided to spend 4 weeks in Canberra. At over 800 km the journey was too long to do in a day, but with the Sydney megalopolis at a bit over the half way point we were in a quandary as to how to break it up. In the end we decided we would stay the night at an overnight rest area at Ourimbah, about 60 km north of Sydney. However, when we arrived at the rest area we found it was a designated 'driver reviver' stop, and was heaving with travellers taking advantage of the free tea, coffee and bikkies. There wasn't enough room for us to even stop, let alone pull up for the night. We were in a real quandary as there were no free camps any further south until well past Sydney, and very few caravan parks. After several frantic phone calls we managed to find a site at a caravan park at Camden, about 70km south of Sydney. They made sure to say that the office closed at 6pm and we had to be there before then, but we had a good run through the city (luckily we'd decided to travel on a weekend) and arrived in time, albeit feeling a bit frazzled.

With not much more than 200km to travel today we decided to take the scenic route, diverting from the Hume Highway to visit towns such as Picton, where we did the town walk including the lovely railway viaduct above, Mittagong and Moss Vale. The highlight of the journey was definitely Bowral, childhood home of the most famous of Australian cricketers Don Bradman. We spent a couple of hours at the Bradman museum, with its displays of all things cricket and Bradman related.

Once back on the highway we ran into a massive storm cell, with hail stones not much smaller than the balls that 'the Don' faced in his career. It was quite scary and like many other travellers we pulled off the road for a while until conditions calmed down a bit. We've given the car and van a thorough inspection and neither seems to have suffered any damage from the experience, but our nerves may take a couple of days to recover!

Family Christmas Get-Together

Last weekend we left the van at Coffs and headed down to Sydney for John's extended family Christmas get-together. This is the first time we've been in a position to attend this now-annual event, and enjoyed the chance to catch up with relatives that in some cases we hadn't seen for several years. There are certainly a lot of them these days, with nearly 50 people of all ages enjoying the occasion.

Once again John's sister Diane and her husband Steve provided us with terrific hospitality, we are looking forward to the day when we are finally in our own house and will be able to reciprocate. On Saturday we went walking with Diane in Brisbane Waters National Park, which sprawls across the area near Diane's house on the Central Coast, the weather was perfect for an interesting walk along several creeks and past lookouts and aboriginal carvings. Its amazing how much wonderful bushland in Australia can be found so close to suburbia.