Moving home

It felt a bit strange to be back in Sydney, on one hand it was great, our giant roadtrip had finished and we'd made it without too many ups and downs. At the same time though there was a tinge of sadness that this was the end of our amazing adventure in oz. From now on there are very few aussie places left for us to discover, and will miss the sense of adventure in seeing a new part of oz everyday.



The other downside of getting back to Sydney is that there are lots of things that need to be sorted; Happily though, after a manic week we can say that the two biggest stresses are behind us, we sold the van and we have found somewhere to live. At one point it looked as though neither of these things would happen easily!

We firstly looked for a flat....imagine...trying to find a flat over xmas hols in the city for just 6weeks - most people thought we were crazy! We spent a whole day running round the outer city visiting various places and saw one horrible, horrible place that was more like a swatters den and one gorgeous place (alittle like a lighthouse structure) in Manly that overlooked the harbour (sadly too much) and you could even snorkle on a private beach at the back of the garden! Luckily for us the next day we saw a place near Hyde park (right in the city centre) and we jumped at it. It's officially our first roof over our heads together...ahhhh... It's a fab house with 10 others from Colombia, France, Germany, Brazil, Italy etc.... it's basically the united nations! It's brilliant and should be great fun over xmas! ... Adam also said that I have to mention our fab bed linen... our bed is covered in Red/purple satin sheets and looks very 70's pimp!

Our other good/sad news is that poor old Bruce drove off into the sunset today with alittle tear in our eyes! The Bruce-miester did us proud though... after 1 hour of sticking up our adverts, a lovely french guy, Arnaud had a look and gave us an offer - brilliant! We really wanted the van to go to a good home and we've had an absolutely unforgettable time in him!



But like anything, it wasn't a simple case of just handing over the money, first we had to pass our pink slip (like a basic m.o.t). We didn't think we would have any hassle but this morning the mechanic told us that the little rust damage would fail us and would cost a couple of hundred dollars to fix. We were gutted...but he turned out to be a decent Aussie bloke and told us how to fix it up ourselves at the auto shop round the corner. We basically were stood outside in the carpatrk with filler, tesco card, plastic bag, paper and spray paint in hand.... nutters! But hey, it did the job and even though we are no panel beaters the mechanic was pretty damn impressed, so who knows, maybe we should open a garage when we get home!





So... Everyone was happy, Bruce passed the pink slip, Arnaud drove off to the beach and we had a well deserved fancy lunch to celebrate. Now we can enjoy our last 6weeks in Oz feeling relaxed and looking forward to spending time with lex's folks.

We also went along to the big grand final of Aussie Idol last weekend live at the Sydney Opera House with our new housemates. It was very cheesy but great fun and best of all, there were amazing fireworks over the opera house. We hadn't even been following the show, so didn't care who won, but it turned out that the winner wasn't even an Aussie...he was Irish!

The end of the road....

There she blows!

The final ACT

We're not quite sure if at Australian Capital Territory (ACT) counts as a state or not, but we thought it would be worth a visit none the less. Canberra is a bit of an odd ball city, it that it is very planned, and feels abit American like.



The weather was a bit odd aswell, as driving up to canberra we encountered a hail storm! and it was bloody cold for a couple of days, but fourtunatly its sorted itself out again and is now a very pleasant 27 degrees! (how you doing back home in the cold?)



We basically hit the tourist bits of the town, visiting parliament, the national gallery, museam and war memorial. Apart from that, there's not that much to report. We went to a free lunchtime 'indigenous rock' concert which we thought sounded quite good, but it turned out to be three blokes playing dodgy covers...

So we're now back on the coast inching ever closer to sydney, we're going to relax at the beach today surrounded by christmas sales and santas hanging from roof tops, which is all abit strange.

New South Whales...

So we are back in the state where it all began, We've crossed back into New South Wales for our final stint back to Sydney, and we're both pretty excited, especially as we've now started seeing signs for sydney which isn't far away now. We're going to take a detour into Canberra to have a look around but expect to be back in Sydney within 7 days or so.



We couldn't miss the opportunity to stop in at Eden, and go out whale watching, as we've missed out on doing it up close so many times, and this would probably be the last chance that we got.

It was definitely worth the money as we got to get up close to 4 humpback whales ( 2 mothers and 2 calves) and see them splashing around with dolphins and seals, it was an amazing experience. We'll get some pics up as soon as we get them!

A wwoof and a doof...

We spent the last week wwoofing in the little town of stratford, or Stratty as it became affectionatly known, staying with Beth and her grand-daughter Tilly. They have a lovely little rainbow coloured B&B with a small organic garden.







Beth is very active in the local arts community, and as we arrived they were in full swing rehearsals for Ruang-a-bang-bang; a musical piece for the up-coming Water Water festival. Ruang was a bit like Stomp, a big precussive peice with all the intruments made from recycled materials, They had got a great guy called steve to come down from Queensland and create all of the sounds, he tuned old car alloy wheels, and gas bottles and made 'thongaphones' from drainpipes, and doofs, drums made from old chemical bins.



They soon had us pitching in and we soon started to get to know everyone, from Darren the town crier (with the best aussie 'How ya goin' that we've heard) to David Luxford, the local taxidermist and bow hunter!

We also managed to time our arrival with the Sale Show, basically a rural funfair with rides and games plus cooking competitions and loads of things for the locals to get involved with, It was good fun, especially for Tilly, who found the bouncy castle and didn't want to get off, plus Lizzy (Bill and Leanne's daughter) came second in a local cooking competition, although the general consensus was it was a fix, as she definatly shound have won.





So instead of spending the week gardening as we had expected we ended up getting fully involved in the show; from helping to build the stage to playing in the show itself, which we ended up staying around for a few extra days to be in.





The whole experience was amazing and we were really taken aback at how the community took us in and made us feel like one of the family, most nights we seemed to end up round at Bill and Leanne's house for dinner (which usually their daughter Lizzy had cooked-jamie better watch out!) and we even ended up out at their holiday home were bill took us out fishing in his little tinny (small boat).

On the prom

After leaving Melbourne we headed down to Wilsons Promontory National Park, the most southerly park of Australia. The park has some great beaches and walking trails. On our first day we walked to squeaky beach (which squeaks as you walk on it) and on our second day we scaled to 553m high mt Oberon for some fantastic veiws of the park.







The park is full of wildlife as we got to have a few close up encounters with wombats (which look a bit like a cross between a pig and a koala) and some birds.




We also enjoyed on of the best sunsets we've seen so far, which was also our last sunset over the ocean that we'll get to see in oz, as from now on we'll be travelling back up the east coast to Sydney.


We've now got about four weeks to get to Sydney to meet up with Lex's mum and dad, and as we've got a bit of time on our hands we are going to have a go at a bit more wwoofing for a week or so with a woman who runs a B&B in the small town of Stratford.

We'll keep you posted...