G'day darls!

Sorry for the lengthy delay in our blog entries, we've been rather busy getting ourselves along the Pacific Highway. So as you can tell we're now in Australia, and are just about done with New South Wales - though whoever made the comparison with the real South Wales needs their head testing.

So where to start? The beginning I guess...

Our first week, in Sydney was amazing, not only for the fact we got flushing toilets and loo roll again (horaah) but we also saw some fantastic sights (and a load of harbourside weddings to boot which was weird). It seems we're already discovering that Australia's sights are pretty awe-inspiring and they don't seem to do things by halves. Anyway, the highlight for us was easily the best Monday we've ever had. For those foodies/lazy saturday morning TV watchers amongst you, you may have heard of a lovely Aussie chef called Bill Granger who happens to have a seemingly perfect Sydney life with three restaurants in Sydney, so we thought we'd try and check one out. Turns out his main restaurant, 'bills' was just around the corner from our hostel! And as we rocked up for brekkie, Dan spotted the great man himself actually inside working!! And get this, he even took our order, explained what Spelt Bread was to Danny and brought us our organic orange juice - what a man eh! We were both fairly starstruck (it only being 10am) but just acted pretty cool although 'Saturday Kitchen' will never be the same for us again. Later that afternoon, we hit glamourous Bondi Beach - now that's not bad for a Monday is it?!

For the last week we've had the luxury (of sorts) of being in our own 'Camperman Australia' campervan. It's actually more like a suped up version of a big white van but we like it and it's home for the next couple of weeks yet, until we reach Cairns.

And as most of you are probably aware by now, last Friday was Dan's birthday which we celebrated by waking up in a place called Blackheath, which is slightly further along the road from touristy Katoomba, and which lies at the heart of the spectacular Blue Mountains. After taking in some gorgeous views, we headed to "Australia's most popular caves", 'the Jenolan Caves' which was good (as caves go). We did have our first encounter with some wildlife, spotting a brown snake near the caves but kept our distance of course. It's probably worth pointing out here that there's an enormous amount of wildlife around us and Danny has already unintentionally killed (or maimed) 2 snakes with the Campervan!

We finished the day with some cheapo wine ($8.99 for a 4l carton of red) and the obligatory barbie and a birthday muffin. Bonzer! See we're fitting in already with our use of the local lingo - though we're sometimes made to feel very much like silly pommies, the best example had to be when we booked into one campsite and told them we intended to go to Palm Beach (aka Summer Bay) that evening, only to be swiftly told, "Ah what! What d'ya wanna do that for? - have you heard this darl? (to his wife) they wanna go to Palm Beach!". Needless to say we think they just wanted us to stay at their site, which we ended up doing of course! The next day we got our trip to Palm Beach/Summer Bay. It was fab - we thoroughly enjoyed taking cheesy photos of one another under the 'Surf Club' sign and enjoyed a cheese sandwich parked up on the beach whilst trying to spot Alf Stewart.

Having quaffed some of the cheapo wine, we decided to try some fancy stuff next and after leaving Summer Bay, the Hunter Valley wine region was the next major tourist obstacle in our way, so we thought why not? (there seems to be a National Park or gorgeous beach or something or other along every bit of the country so far and it is so tempting to stay longer than the short time our itinerary allows us but at least we're managing to cram some stuff in I guess) Anyway, our day's wine 'tasting' was very enjoyable and educational but we seemed to be unique in our group as we were using the tour more as a (drinking) experience in itelf rather than as a shopping exercise. We did come away with lots of cheese though and there was always the cheapo stuff waiting ffor us back in the cellars of Camperman Australia.

It's certainly proving harder to do things on a budget here and most nights we've had to book into a campsite of one form or other, though we found a little beaut the other night in Hat Head, which lies just beyond Coffs Harbour, and where we had our second major animal encounter. This time we woke up to find the van surrounded by Kangaroos nibbling the grass around the van. Also not too far away were their friends the Kookaburra's. Our friendly next door neighbour gave us some luncheon meat to feed them with which soon encouraged a whole lot of them start swooping down on us like a scene from the birds. Anyway, they're fat little things and were soon almost eating from the palms of our hands.

And so we've made it to Byron Bay where the sun is only just coming out after a morning of rain, yes rain (what you playing at Australia?!). We're planning on having a mooch round the town, perhaps pop into Woolie's for some supplies, then probably spend the rest of the day topping up our tans. It's definitely the most obvious thing to do and nearly every town on the east coast so far seems to offer excellent surfing, fishing, diving etc, most of which we're planning to do further north along the Great Barrier Reef should the money last. Whoever thought sending convicts here as punishment also needs their head testing.

So next up is Queensland, 'the Sunshine State' but most importantly, home to Australia Zoo and its famous 'Crocoseum'...can't wait!