Melbourne to Sydney

Day 1
Picking up our car wasn't as easy as we planned, just like when we picked the van up in Darwin. The car didn't come with any extras so we needed to buy roll mats for the tent (we had mattresses in the van last time), a stove, frying pan, cutlery and plates plus we needed to visit the local market to stock up on vegetables.
Directing ourselves around the city to find these things, along with the differences of driving with trams (to turn right you had to do a 'hook turn' where you pull in on the left until the traffic clears, it's pretty dangerous though as you're driving across cars coming from behind you and in the opposite direction) plus Ben stalling the car about 50 times (which would reach 500 times by the end of the week!) was pretty stressful. We were drained and relieved as we finally left the city and got onto the correct highway.
Our plan was to head for the coast with nothing in between but as we neared 5pm and were looking for somewhere to spend the night, I noticed one sentence in the guidebook on an island that we were nearby called Raymond Island. All the guidebook said was that it was full of birdlife, koala's and kangaroo's. Well, I was sold, Ben was sceptical and thought we should get settled for the night before it got dark. I used my persuasive powers to get him onto the 3 minute ferry over and asked the driver where we would see roo's and koala's. He was great and gave us a map, directions and somewhere where we could camp for free (which isn't allowed). Off we went koala hunting. It took a while to spot them as they were pretty much the same colour as the trees and they really don't move much but once you got the hang of it it became easier. We saw 7 of them, including a baby clinging onto its parent. It was ace. We headed over to our spot to camp for free under a spectacular sunset and on the way in the fields were loads of roo's. I was so happy! They were very wary of us, you couldn't get closer than about 10m but it didn't matter. They really are amazing to watch hopping around. We saw quite a few, ones that would jump across the road ahead of you and we saw a giant guy, he must have been about 2m tall. He was so big you could see his biceps!
'Gravelly point' where we were planning to camp was a little rocky beach and very pretty but after it got dark it started to be a bit scary! We were right on the west coast of the island and everyone lives on the east coast so even though it was only a tiny island it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. We were thinking of just sleeping in the car instead of putting the tent up when Ben put it in my head that 'what if that guy sent us here to come and get us?' Great! We weren't sleeping there! We headed back to where we got off the ferry next to a little picnic area and toilet so we slept in the car in the car park! I woke up in the middle of the night needing the toilet and set the car alarm off, scaring us both to death and I had a very bad back when we woke up but it was free and we had a great time there so can't complain too much.

Day 2
We left the island pretty early after breakfast after a last drive to see more roo's. We really needed to hit the east coast today to start seeing all the places we had planned. After lunch we reached Eden. We visited a few cold beaches but it was too chilly to stay out of the car for more than a few minutes. We headed to a look out point which was good for spotting whales but we didn't see anything apart from a lovely view.
I'd choose cheese over whale watching so we headed to a cheese factory in Bega for a bit of tasting! It was lovely. It had also brightened up a little so we headed to Camel Beach for a rest where we did see some humpback whales! They were really far out so I struggled to see them but you could make them out jumping out of the water or spraying water from their blowhole.
It was getting late and it was quite a built up area so we didn't have much choice apart from checking into a campsite. We chose a gorgeous spot by a lake and pitched up our tent, surrounded by rabbits and giant pelicans. It was really nice sitting out on a blanket by the lake cooking tea and watching the sun go down before we went to bed. In the middle of the night Ben woke me (3 times as I kept trying to ignore him!) to tell me there was a massive storm coming. We moved into the car as we didn't trust our 'water resistant' tent and I'm glad we did. It was scary and spectacular at the same time, kind of missing us apart from 10 minutes of really heavy rain before it headed out to sea. I was worried as the rain meant we couldn't see out of the window in case the lake flooded and we were stuck in the car! When it had stopped we checked on the tent and it was pretty much a pond. Another night sleeping in the car, great! In the morning a guy who worked on the camp said that the campsite next door had been hit really hard and trees had fallen over. Lucky us seen as we were camped near loads of trees!

Day 3
Our first stop of the morning, after having to spend ages trying to get the tent dry and in the car battling the wind, was a drive through Tilba Tilba valley and into Central Tilba, a quaint little town with craft shops and 2 more cheese factories! I was so cheesed out (I never thought I'd say this!) that later on we passed another cheese factory and we didn't stop! The cheese was really nice though and we bought some garlic Kala-something (made with olives which I don't like but it worked!) After all that cheese we headed to some wine tasting in a pretty little setting. We only tried the whites and I hated them all not being a massive wine fan but Ben liked some of them. I felt a bit cheeky having no intention of buying but we didn't have too much!
We hit some driving after all the eating and drinking until we reached Naroomba, a seaside town famous for it's fish and chips which were too much to resist! They were great as well. We were asked if we wanted normal salt or chicken salt on our chips. I thought 'I like salt and I like chicken, why not?' It was kind of like a herby salt and was quite nice but the lack of gravy and oven baked chips weren't the best.
We worked off our lunch on 2 gorgeous, empty beaches in Tuross Head playing with a football, one of the presents I got Ben for his birthday. It was great fun.
Our aim for the night was a campsite called 'Pebbly Beach'. You had to drive through the rainforest to reach it and it was just by a beach, famous for its kangaroo's that play there. The office was closed when we reached it so you had to go round to a ladies house...which had a driveway full of kangaroo's! After the wild roo's on Raymond Island I couldn't believe how close you could get to these ones, I even stroked one! I turned round and about 10 other roo's came bounding up, stopping a couple of metres away from us obviously wanting to know if we had any food! The woman told us not to feed anything, especially possums! 'Where can we go to see a possum?' I asked. 'They'll find you' she said confidently. She told us to watch out for the 2m long goanna lizards that roam around and to watch out for snakes!
We set up the tent and headed down to the beach to be greeted by the kangaroo's. It was great scenery against the beach and the cliffs. There were babies in pouches and we were even treated to two males boxing each other. What a great place! On the way back to camp I was pointing at some weird ducks when one came running over hissing and tried to attack Ben! It was so funny!!!!
We were cooking our tea and the only other person camping, an Aussie called Mark, came to say hello. After learning that we were having a vegetable stir fry (we had nowhere to keep any meat cold) he donated us some really nice steak and invited us to someone else's camper van later on, a young couple where the guy played the guitar and sang really well.
It wasn't long until Mr. Possum found us, snorting away and practically begging for food. We couldn't get him to leave, he just wasn't scared of us! When Ben had asked what a possum was a few weeks ago I could only describe it as a 'massive rat', so he was never going to like it but I thought it was quite cute! He treated us to some acrobatics jumping between the picnic tables before we left to find our gig for the night. Rex and Lisa, an Aussie couple, were really nice and Rex really was amazing on the guitar. They donated us some Bourbon (all these free things!) and had a great night chatting and listening to Rex. They live up in Airlie Beach which is the point where you set off for a Whitsundays cruise so they said they might have a spare room when we reach there and gave us their number which was really nice of them.

Day 4
We had a little walk down to the beach before breakfast but there were no kangaroo's which was weird after the number of them the night before. The most interesting thing that happened was Ben being attacked by another bird! A parakeet swooped down and tried to land on his head, it came down from behind so he didn't know what it was and really jumped. There were quite a few people around who were all laughing and I couldn't stop laughing!!!!
Today we needed to drive as far as possible to the Blue Mountains, only 100km west of Sydney. They get their name from the thousands of eucalyptus trees surrounding them, which cause a blue mist to rise and cover the mountains.
Our only stop of interest on the way was Kiama, home to 'The Blowhole'. The cliffs have a hole in them and when a big wave hits, the water shoots through this tunnel type thing and shoots up into the air like a whale. On rough days the water has reached as high as 60m and even washed people out to sea who have gotten too close! We did have to wait quite a while in between but we saw it shoot water up a little bit. The most impressive thing was the noise the water made, it sounded like the world was ending!
We had lunch in the sun on a pleasant bit of grass overlooking the sea whilst at least 3 different wedding parties had pictures taken with the scenery and Ben had a nice little nap-I did feel guilty that he was doing all the driving. Then we had to crack on and reached a lay by about 20km from the town we would base ourselves in at the Blue Mountains. It was a bit weird putting our tent up by the side of the road but we didn't have much choice. It was dark and we were tired.

Day 5
After an early start we reached our recommended hostel and pitched our tent outside-it was quite a lot cheaper than staying in a dorm. After a quick wifi stop (we missed all the news!) we were off to the most famous of the Blue Mountains attractions; The Three Sisters, which are basically three rocks attached to each other. The short story is that there was a war, a guy turned the three sisters into stone to protect them from the war but was killed before he had a chance to turn them back. The end. The scenery was spoilt a little by the hoards of tourists-the typical ones that Ben and I mock who take pictures of branches, pieces of toast and I suspect, lampposts. We went for a little walk before it got too much and headed for the more impressive and a lot quieter Blackheath. We did a walk for a few kilometres to take in some gorgeous views and headed home for the night with a plan to treat ourselves to some beers.
The beers were made pretty enjoyable with the company of 2 Salford lads, 1 unfortunately a City fan (the other Sheffield Wednesday). It was nice talking about places at home and in/near Monton where we used to live by a fire outside.
Most of the week in the tent or even in the car has been freezing but this night was even worse. We now have 2 blankets and go to sleep in joggers, fleeces and anything else that we can find. It still wasn't enough.

Day 6
We headed to Wentworth Falls for some lovely views of the waterfall and surrounding mountains after we'd packed up the tent but our minds were more occupied with getting to Sydney in time and finding somewhere to stay before we had to give back the car.
It was a hectic drive in. We couldn't find a free hostel to stay in and got lost quite a lot, it took us 3-4 hours in the end and we only just got the car back in time!

A great trip all in all. We barely spent any money on petrol, the car was a lot cheaper than the van but we did miss the ability to sleep in it on mattresses. Much of our trip was even better than our 10 day trek through the centre, mainly because a lot of it was more of a discovery-some Aussie's that we have met have never even heard of Raymond Island. We were definitely ready for a bed, a pillow and some warmth though!