Our final days in Australia were spent in a luxurious penthouse apartment in an exclusive part of Sydney. Well, when I say "luxurious penthouse" I mean a top-floor room in a hostel; and by "exclusive" I mean Kings Cross, which can be regarded as exclusive only by backpackers, prostitutes and drug dealers. On the other hand, the room was huge, with a sofa for watching TV and a small separate kitchen. Best of all was the view, which took in the...

Having completed our trip the final hurdle was to sell our four-wheel drive car. In many ways I was looking forward to the challenge because when I was younger I'd helped my dad sell various cars and he taught me all the tips and tricks. I'd also done loads of research before the journey. The main difficultly was the distortions of the backpacker market in which we'd be selling - such as dealing with young inexperienced buyers, Australia's complicated buyer/s...

Most of our blogs have concerned the things we have seen or done, but in the past couple of weeks we have done very little apart from working hard to sell the car. Katy is writing about that separately, so what does that leave me? Just a couple of anecdotes and the opportunity to write about other people, including another opportunity to rant about scummy backpackers! Back in Sydney, we stayed once again at the Sheralee camp site in the suburb of Rockdale, where...

After Port Macquarie we decided to take the smaller coastal roads north rather than just use the main highway. This led to a rather random, but very pleasant overnight stop at Wooli. The grey clouds disappeared as we neared the coast, leaving us bathed in sunshine so we went for a walk on the beach. Wooli occupies a bay stretching far away to north and south; the waves pound the golden sand and there were few people to be seen. It would be a wonderful spot to sp...

Even though I've known Richard for more than ten years it wasn't until we went to Oamaru in New Zealand and saw the little blue penguins that he discovered how soppy I can be around animals. When reading in the guide book that Port MacQuarrie had a Koala Hospital I couldn't resist going. The area around the town is covered in Eucalyptus trees and home to lots of koalas. Unfortunately this close proximity means they get involved in road accidents, attacked from...