The Long Road to Sydney

Hi Guys

So, on the way back to Sydney we stopped for a night in bohemian Byron Bay and watched the sun set on the beach, whilst a load of hippies played their bongo drums - very cool.

We also went for a walk in early morning up to Cape Byron Lighthouse; a great place to spot migrating humpback whales. We were lucky enough to spot a pod of dolphins AND some whales, but could not get a clear enough photo of them to put on the blog, as they were just too far away. You'll just have to settle for photo's of the lighthouse instead.

The 2nd place we stopped overnight, was a beautiful Tuscan style B&B, set in the hills of a fab small town called Bellingen. We explored the town and nearby Dorrigo, which is where the scenery shots were from, and then continued our journey to Sydney, arriving late Sunday 15th June

Long Lost Cousin

As we said before, we stayed at our cousin Natalie's and her boyfriend Glenn's place in Brisbane.

Thank you for putting us up and putting up with us and we look forward to you coming to stay with us when you make it to UK. Lets not leave it another 10 years till we meet again!

Dad, Mum, Simon and Michael, Nat says "G'day" to you.

On our last night Nat and Glenn took us out to a lovely Himalayan/Tibetan resturant and the food was delicious - Andrew decided to convert into a Buddhist Monk to fit in with the theme.

We are now on our way to Sydney via a couple of stops so bye for now.

Australia Zoo

Some more pics

Have a look at the 3rd picture down. The one of the beautiful furry animal and the kangaroo standing next to her!

Australia Zoo

Crikey!

We've been to Australia Zoo.

Have a look at the photos.

We got to hold a snake, pet baby goats, Kangaroos and Koala's.

We saw the live Croc Show, where they feed the crocs, just like Steve Irwin used to.

A day in Sydney and journey to Brisbane

We spent a very productive day in Sydney sorting out visas on 6th June and managed to snap a few photos, but we will return on 16th June to stay for 10 days.

We headed up to Brisbane, which is over 900km, so stopped at a few places on the way, including lunch in Hunter Valley(Shivani by the fireplace) and an overnight stay in Schoal Bay, followed by another overnight in Sawtell, just outside Coff's Harbour. We went for an early morning beach walk(see photos) and then carried on our journey. Arriving in Brisbane on Monday 9th June at Andrew's cousin Natalie's.

Speak soon......

Kangaroos, Bats and Massive Spiders

The photos were all taken of animals in the wild.

The Kangaroos were just lying around outside peoples houses, the bats were all in the trees in a park and are Fruit Bats - the largest bat in the world and the Spiders were the size of Andrews hand(including out-stretched fingers).

Be afraid, be very afraid!

Albury, Canberra and The Blue Mountains

Sorry for the delay in blog entries, but you're about to get bombarded, as we are staying somewhere with on-site computer access now.

To cut a long story short, after The Great Ocean Road we went Albury for 1 night, as a stop-over and then on to Canberra for 1st June. We stayed for a few nights and relaxed, as there was not much to see & do. We have included a photo of their Parliament House, but that was about as interesting as it got!

we did however, get see the new Indiana Jones film and then once we got to The Blue Mountains, Andrew insisted on doing Indiana Jones style poses for the photos, which thankfully, we have only included 1 of.

We stayed in a lovely B&B in the moutains at a place called Katomba and as you can see from the photo, Shivani is still not prepared to comprimise on the standard of accommodation!

We hiked for 4 hours in the mountains, which included descending 1000 steps into the causeway and then trekking past streams, waterfalls and through rainforest. Then catching the scenic railway, a near vertical train, back up the mountain to finish with another trek back to Echo Point, where we started. We finished by having a well earned Devonshire Cream Tea by the fireplace in the best hotel in The Blue Mountains called Lilianfels.

We loved The Blue Mountains, even though the 2 days we were there they weren't particularly blue, more grey, due to the weather not being great.

TTFN