Further South.........................

30th October: After a very relaxing week at Casino, we headed south to Grafton, on the Clarence River; famous for it's Jacaranda lined streets. We were fortunate to see these beautiful trees in full bloom, a lovely haze of purple everywhere.

Next stop Coffs Harbour, where we walked around the marina, then climbed to the top of Mutton Bird Island. I should have taken the camera, as the view was great.
We stayed in the car park overnight, worrying that we might be told to move on, but it was OK.

31st October: Next morning the car park was filling up by 7am; all the kids were there for surf lifesaving training.
We drove out at 8.30am, around to the breakwater. Nice view from there.

We found our way out of Coffs Harbour with the help of our GPS and continued further south past Nambucca Heads, Macksville, Kempsey and Port Macquarie, to our next overnight stop, Tom Cat Creek. Even though it is beside the highway, the noise wasn't bad.

1st November: We left the camp area around noon for Taree, where we obtained a map from the Information Centre. We decided to take the tourist drive through the Great Lakes region. Very scenic in places, and worth visiting, but some of the roads were quite bad.

Next overnight stop was Bulahdelah, on the Pacific Highway again. There is a golf club here with a Chinese restaurant, so that is where we had dinner. The food was quite tasty and cheap, and the wine was only $2 per glass. We were happy.    :)

2nd November: 9.30am we headed down the highway, then south east to a place called Tea Gardens, and neighbouring Hawks Nest. Nice and quiet in these 2 small towns between the lakes and the sea.

Back to the highway again, then west to Maitland, where we toured the old gaol. Very interesting.
Now to find a safe place for the night. Further west to Singleton, the heart of the Hunter valley, we stopped at a nice looking park with shady trees, lawns and clean toilets. Life is good.    :)

3rd November: We went to the Singleton Information centre to ask about Putty Road to Windsor as an alternate route to avoid driving through Sydney, and were told it was a good road, but winding in places, so that was the route we chose. 179 kms with no towns or anywhere to stop. It certainly was winding for several kms as it followed a creek, then climbed into the mountains. We had Wollemi national park on our right and Yengo national park on our left as we drove high on the ridge. Finally, after some steep descents, we were in Windsor, but continued on to Penrith as we intended going to the Blue Mountains next day.
We booked into a a caravan park at Penrith as it was very hot and we wanted to connect to power to run our air conditioner. Surprise! Air conditioner doesn't cool! grrrrrrrrrr
We will need to get it fixed at some stage.

4th November: Cooler with some light rain this morning; a big relief.
Headed west up the steep highway into the Blue Mountains. We passed through some quaint villages until we reached Katoomba, where we stopped to look around. The main street is very hilly, then we found ourselves at Echo Point. Bus loads of tourists everywhere.
After parking Winny, we wandered over to see what everyone was trying to see through the mist. The Three Sisters, famous rock formation, was right there! I hadn't realised it was so close to the town, having assumed a hike into the mountains was the only way to access this site. Well, now I know.    LOL

As there are no freedom camp spots in the tourist areas, we headed off towards Lithgow, as there is a place to stop just west of there. What a steep hill to drive down. Big signs stating trucks and buses MUST use low gear, speed limit 40 kph! Beautiful view of the valley below though.

5th November: We drove another 35 km west to Bathurst, then south to Oberon, where we had lunch looking out on a pretty valley.

It was hard to believe we were still in the mountains looking at these gently rolling hills.
Our next stop was Goulburn, around 150 kms south of Oberon, and the road was quite good; gentle hills and bends. Then suddenly we came to this.........

2.5 km steep descent, single lane, hairpin bends, down to the bottom of the valley! When we reached the bottom, Rick said "that was fun, let's do it again"   We didn't.
Through Goulburn and onto the Federal Highway towards Canberra, we found a cold, windy place for the night.

6th November: This is the coolest we have been for a long while; we had to find jackets.

We drove into Canberra, our nation's capital, where we spent 4 days checking out various museums, the Mint, old and new Parliament House, Mount Stromlo Observatory (which was badly damaged by bushfires a few years ago)  and the Deep Space Communication Centre. All very interesting. 

Photo below is blanks being tipped into a machine ready for minting into coins.

This is our Parliament. We walked on the grass on the roof

Part of the Mount Stromlo Observatory complex, destroyed by bushfire.

Big dish at the Deep Space Communication Centre.

10th November: Left Canberra 10.30am, still heading south, towards Cooma. We were still in the mountains; then heading east we came to Brown Mountain, which we had to drive down to get towards sea level again, and our next camp spot. 10 kms steep winding descent, with the obligatory hairpin bends. Sigh, I was getting tired of mountains by this time. As usual though, the views were magic.

We drove through the cheese town of Bega, then around 20 kms south to Yellow Pinch Dam rest area. 1 km steep road off the highway, this was a lovely quiet bush area, with water and good loos. We stayed 2 nights here.

12th November: We thought we had better make tracks or we'd never get to Adelaide for Christmas. But....................which Christmas???    LOL

The next camp site we chose from our book was closed, so another 20 km on we found a place, close to the highway, lots of flies, but we had some good company from other travellers.

13th November: 19 km south to Genoa, the first town across the border in Victoria. Not really a town, it has a pub, a handful of houses, and a GREAT rest area.

But first, we headed off the highway to the coast, Mallacoota. Pretty town with lakes and rivers, and fishing. Rick tried his luck and caught a Flathead.

We drove back to Genoa as it got dark, and stopped there for 2 nights as we liked it there. Big grassy area with shady trees, good loos, surrounded by green paddocks with grazing cows and far enough off the highway that we hardly heard the traffic.

15th November: Heading west / south west now, through Orbost and then south along the Snowy River to Marlow. We camped beside the river just out of town, and Rick tried feeding the fish again. He isn't having much luck catching any.

16th November: Next stop Lakes Entrance. Some very nice water views around here.

After driving around the area we went through Bairnsdale to find our next camp at Providence Ponds.  This was right next to the highway, and very noisy and dusty. The loos weren't bad though.

17th November: Drove to Sale, the first town in the Gippsland region, where we walked around the lake, then we went downstream to see the old swing bridge.

Our next overnight spot is Willow Park, which we almost missed as it wasn't sign posted early enough. This is another nice big grassed area beside a river, La Trobe, but it has some traffic noise.

We are staying here 2 nights before we tackle the freeway into Melbourne. Our Magna sedan is still at the Winnebago dealer, 6 months after we drove Winny north! So I will follow Rick back to Adelaide driving the Magna, he in the Winny. We should get back in a week or so.