Thursday 22nd December 2011

Well it is our 2nd last day on the road, we will leave Ballina tomorrow morning for the last 200kms back home, what an adventure!

Day 118 Sunny Corner (Lithgow)
Day 119 Blackheath
Days 120 & 121 Belmont (Blue Mountains)
Day 122 Wingham
Days 123 & 124 Port Macquarie
Days 125 to 127 Coffs Harbour
Days 128 to 130 Ballina

After leaving Queanbeyan, we drove through Paul's old town of Goulburn to have a quick look around and then the ''scenic'' back way to Bathurst. It has saved a lot of time using the GPS, but as said before, it does take you on some strange roads as it is the shortest route.  Well, we ended up and down hills, gravel road and at one stage I didn't want to know what was happening (I have a fear that the brakes are going to fail and a 2 tonne caravan is going to drag us down the mountain)  so promptly fell off to sleep!

We came into Bathurst and saw a sign to Mt Panorama where the famous race happens each year and were amazed that the circuit is actually a road with people living in the middle of the circuit and also a winery!  We decided to do a lap, of course with caravan in tow!

Next day we drove through Lithgow into the Blue Mountains. We were a bit excited that the dogs were going into a kennel for 24 hours which would enable us to see the beautiful scenery and to go out for dinner.

The weather was starting to change very rapidly and the rain came down. We just managed to go into the Skyrail to see the 3 sisters and then walked around the rainforest, which was beautiful and then caught the train back up to the top.  It was amazing how steep the train went back up the range, it seems it was on a 51degree gradient!

After all the excitement and being caught up in the hoards of chinese tourists that were there by the bus loads, we decided we needed some peace and quiet and went into the Carrington Hotel at Katoomba.  It was beautiful it stepped you back into a different era.  With the beautiful furnishings and rooms, it was very elegant. We decided to have devonshire tea at the Champagne Bar, we were lucky it was such a big serving of 2 scones and a pot of tea that it was big enough for 2 of us.

It carried on raining all afternoon and through the night, so the dogs were very excited to see us in the morning and then we headed down the range towards Sydney.  As the weather was pretty miserable, you couldn't see 2 cars in front of you, becuase you were actually driving in the cloud!  Once we started descending, it became clearer (thank heavens)

It seemed very strange driving on the Motorways on the Sydney outskirts (the closest we got was 44kms to Sydney). Everyone seemed to be in a hurry!  We started heading north through Gosford & up the Coast and stayed at Belmont South on Lake Macquarie, which was just beautiful.

Finally a change in the weather for the better and decided to take the dogs for a run on the beach, which they are quite getting accustomed to and a quick look around Newcastle, which was only 20kms away.

As we had only visited the Hunter Valley only April this year, we decided to do a quick detour in to stock up on a few supplies and not stay there. One of our favourite places is the deli at Tempus Two Winery as it has many different cheeses (to keep Paul happy) and many different flavours of gelati (to keep me happy) so it is a win win situation on both accounts, but this did stop us in our tracks........a mars bar cheesecake...thank goodness we shared it

We drove into Port Stephens, it was beautiful, so many different little bays in one area. We did go for a walk on a Headland and was surprised to see how quick the water was rushing from both directions, it looked quite dangerous, that it actually created a wave in the middle! (the photo doesn't do it any justice)

We ended up at a free campsite outside of Taree next to a river which was lovely until dusk and then we realised we were next to a Bat Colony and they started screeching!  It wasn't too bad, but I wouldn't want to live next to them, but it was amazing to see thousands of bats flying in 4 different directions for hours

Next 2 nights at Port Macquarie, which was nice. I thought I would give myself a treat and have some quiet time and off to the Beauty salon for a facial and pedicure. After 4 months on the road, it felt really strange to being so pampered and have lovely soft skin at the end, I felt like I was back in the land of the living again!!

As we are coming back the Coastline, there are ample opportunities to take the dogs to the Beach, which they absolutely love, we just have to drive around a bit to find the dog friendly beaches.

We made the decision to plan the last week as we are a week from Christmas and in School Holidays and that means two things...1. We can't just turn up at a Caravan Park in case they are booked out and 2. they double the price! We seemed a bit sad to know what our plans were going to be for the next week and that we knew what day we were going to be home. I rang Mum and Dad to say expect another two mouths to feed for Christmas Day, needless to say they were very happy at the decision.

A quick drive through Kempsey, but we did decide to stop at Fredrickton as they claim to have a famous bakery with 50 different pies. We stopped, but wished we hadn't as they were very mushy and not nice, but did have a huge variety.

We stayed 3 nights at Coffs Harbour and stayed at a lovely caravan park just north from Coffs and it was right on the beach. It was lovely going to sleep each night with the sound of the waves to put you to sleep.

We had some friendly neighbours, so they invited us for 5 o'clock drinks which was very nice, but needless to say that dinner was not made that night!  We even had the local fisho come past in his van, so we bought some lovely green prawns and crocodile tail (which tastes like a combination between chicken and fish)

I like staying in towns for the weekend as it means that I get to go to the local markets, which is fantastic. The quality of vegetables & bread is so much nicer than what you get in the Supermarkets. We have been addicted to free range eggs & rocket on this trip.

The last time we were at Coffs Harbour, we got a tip off about the Deep Sea Fishermans Club, that they have great food at reasonable prices and we had a huge Seafood platter. This time it was too pricey for our budget at $145 and decided on the individual ones, but they were still yummy and it was nice to have dinner out of the van

And of course we had to go to the Big Banana

On our way to Ballina, we decided to have a quick look at Grafton and Yamba. You can definately tell that it is School Holidays, the difference to the rest of our trip is that there are people everywhere along the coastline. We decided to come up the coast as we had seen the inland towns on our trip at April.

It is starting to rain again, so we decided to get out of the van and drive to Lismore, it was nice to see another town, but we decided to get out for a walk around town, but it was so busy with all the Christmas shoppers, oh well, back into the car and we had lunch at Ballina. The Caravan Park that we are at is on one side of the river to the Township, so we can catch a ferry across the river for the 5 minute journey, it was great to leave the hustle and bustle behind and come back to our little bit of quiet!

Today we went for a drive to Bangalow, which is a cute little town. We had a quick walk around as all of the shops seemed a bit expensive for my liking. I like looking in little curio shops, they seem to have lots of interesting things.  Then we drove to Byron Bay....mmm a bit of a mistake, again so many people that the middle of town was a traffic jam, a quick detour down to Lennox Heads which waslovely and quiet and a good walk along the beach

It is amazing to think that we have come all of this way and would do it again in a heartbeat....