Moving along

Well tonight we are at Narrabri, moving west from Tamworth. We spent a couple of nights at Wallabadah rest area about 50ks from Tamworth behind the memorial to the 1st and 2nd fleet, a fleet of ships which left Great Britain bringing convicts to Australia in about 1787. A great memorial, and lovely little spot for camping, free, about 10 vans there each night. We took a day trip into Tamworth, had look around town, nice shopping mall, lots of trees. Very popular to have reverse angle parking in the streets around this area, it means the rear of your car is at the kerb at a 45 degree angle, locals seem quite clever at it, but a bit disconcerting when the car in front of you stops and does a reverse in front of you. We took a scenic route back to our camp taking in the gold mining town of Nundle and Chaffey Dam, camping is allowed at the dam and we did consider whether to camp there for a couple of nights but decided we would carry on. We plan to head to Burren Junction tomorrow, Sunday and free camp around the artesian pools....... Weather is warmer in the day here but cool nights. Driving through the area we could see white woolly stuff all along the rd, turns out to be that cotton is grown in this area and it was that along the road dropping of the trucks.

Looking down on Tamworth from the lookout, drove down that street to the town centre, found a nice coffee place and an Aldi!!!

Chaffey Dam, camping around the other side

Memorial garden to the First Fleet

Found a Rimmer in the list of crew, nothing on convict list if course

Yes I wondered why Wallabadah too

Gins Leap, on our travels today we stopped here. Story is a young Aboriginal girl and her lover from another tribe ran away together, were pursued and leapt to their deaths here... Sad... 

Change of route

Just a quick blog to say where we are.  We decided at Bulahdelah that we didn't want to carry on travelling up the coast so we back tracked a bit to Newcastle at have taken the New England Hwy inland. The last two nights we have been camped at lake Liddell. This area has a lot of coal mines and two power stations. Moving on today maybe towards Tamworth .....

Only a couple of photos of the lake and power station

Change of route

Just a quick blog to say where we are.  We decided at Bulahdelah that we didn't want to carry on travelling up the coast so we back tracked a bit to Newcastle at have taken the New England Hwy inland. The last two nights we have been camped at lake Liddell. This area has a lot of coal mines and two power stations. Moving on today maybe towards Tamworth .....

Only a couple of photos of the lake and power station

Sydney and beyond

Enjoyed our last campground at Moruya but decided to move on further up the coast to Ulladulla and found a camp at the show grounds just outside at Milton, $18 a night with power. Had a couple of days there sightseeing but knowing that sooner or later we would have to get past Sydney to carry on with our travels we asked people advice on roads etc and decided on a route and that Sunday would be a good day to travel we set of on Mother's Day. Not a bad journey but not one I would want to do again, started with freeways, not to much traffic and then had to negotiate the suburbs/ towns in outer Sydney and then eventually a motorway again. We travelled about  450k,  and finally stopped at Bulahdelah, not sure how you would pronounce it but a lovely little town with a free camp by the river. It was good to get a nice camp after a long travelling day. We are about 240ks north of Sydney now and deciding on what route to take next, spent time in Bulahdelah today, having coffe and relaxing.

Our camp at Moruya 

Beach just behind camp

Harbour at Ulladulla, had a nice coffee here overlooking the harbour

Our camp at Bulahdelah after a long day travelling

Looking down at camp from town, our rig at the front, will probably be about 10 to 15 vans in by evening 

Travelling up the coast

Yesterday we travelled north up the NSW coast towards Batemans Bay. On the way we stopped at Bermagui and found a great fish and chip shop by the marina and shared a Fishermans Basket. We are camped Moruya at a campground close to the airport, fortunately not a busy place, looks like one flight in the morning and another at night, the rest is light aircraft for joy flights, camping is only $11 a night, no power but toilets, lots of other campers around so a good place to stay.

Today we drove into Bateman Bay via the tourist drive, lots of lovely little beaches and bays along the way and we managed to find a bakery cafe by the beach for our coffee and cake stop...

Batemans looked a lovely town, usual shops, Aldi etc so had to pop in but otherwise we enjoyed the town surrounds and had our lunch in a park. A relaxing day ...

A great little beach we found on our way to Batemans Bay

Close up of the rocky island

Bentley had a little swim

And then a roll in the sand

Beachside Bakery, enjoyed coffee and Banana cake here

Para glider, parachutist? Not sure he just dropped from the sky over the airport

NSW

Well after a couple of days visiting friends Colin and Gail  in Foster and visiting Wilsons Promomentry National park we headed east. The weather turned cold with grey skies so we carried on to Eden NSW where the sun shone today at least, lovely town and have been told it is similar to Albany with the port and whaling etc, and yes I can see that.

In a caravan park tonight so power and Thelma is out cooking tonight ......

Emus and wombat at Wilsons Prom

Beach area Wilsons Prom

Colin and Gail's bird Griffin

Fishing Harbour Eden

Bentley had a frolic in the beach, and is that Granddad?? 

 He does enjoy  a good run on the beach

Beach at Eden

Boolarra and then Phillip Island

We spent 4 nights behind the pub at Boolarra, took a drive through nearby national park, lots of winding rd and then across the ridge rd back to camp also had  a lovely country walk around the town for about an hour ending with a coffee at the cafe cum general store in town. Enjoyed our stay, had pizza and  drinks at the pub, chatted to the locals and fellow campers but decided we had to move on, the day we left, Monday the overnight temp didn't go below 20 degrees, very odd as most nights it was only 8, but they say Melbourne weather is like that and we are not too far away, anyway we drove about 50 ks down the road, again a winding rd! to Leongatha and we are in a caravan park here. When we arrived we had only just got set up and the warm weather changed and it went cold and wet wet, we spent the afternoon in the van with Brian popping out for some shopping and then getting Thelma out to make some bread.....

Today Wednesday the weather is nicer and we drove to Phillip Island stopping at Inverloch on the way, this is the first time we have seen the Ocean for a while, Bentley had a mad dash on the beach, even a quick swim.... With the wind blowing cold and being on the beach we felt we were back in Albany!!! 

We stopped for a coffee at San Remo before going over the causeway to Phillip Island, there we headed for Cowes, where we walked the shops and had lunch on the foreshore and then stopped at Rhyll on the way back, great island and we loved it, didn't get to the penguins though, but I feel in the summer it would be packed, so good to enjoy it out of season.

Country walk around Boolarra

Looking at you, looking at me

Bentley enjoyed the walk, kept him away from the cows though

Lovely loaf that Brian baked

Our first glimpse at the Ocean at Inverloch

Causeway at San Remo going over to Phillip Island

Foreshore at Cowes, there's that lost Grandad in my photo again!

Jetty at Cowes

A couple of shots of the bay at Rhyll