Blog Day 185 Mon 7th November 2011

This morning we are woken up by an eager old soul who probably has the most pointless job in the whole of Australia. Blowing leaves with a very loud petrol leaf blower at 7.30 in the morning, around a forest! By 8.30 he had finished his noise making and that's when we surfaced from the van. There was honestly no evidence that he had been there whatsoever! The floor was still covered with leaves!

A couple of bacon and egg sarnies later and we are on the road headed for Batemans Bay. We seem to drive forever this morning but according to the map we had only moved 6 inches. At Batemans we have a little wander round the shops and stock up on a few supplies. The weather isn't all that great today and it seems as though this area thrives on outdoor activities, therefore it's dead. We grab what we need from the shops and get back onto the road again.

The drive down to our rest stop for the night is nice and scenic as we hug the coastline all the way, before coming back inland. Bodalla Forest Park rest area is where we end up tonight, and it's probably the only rest stop we have come across down the whole east coast of Australia that says camping is allowed. As we start to prepare a dinner of chicken teriyaki with noodles, we hear that oh so familiar sound of rolling thunder overhead. This can mean only one thing….yes RAIN!!

We dive onto a picnic table that is covered with a roof & start to cook as the rain lashes down around us. Once it starts to ease of we dive into the camper & watch the rest of a movie that we started watching the other day. The Firm with Tom Cruise!

Just as it is finishing there is a knock on the door. A couple of older campers have put together a fire & are inviting fellow campers over for a beer. The fire is great & reminds us of the braii-ing in South Africa which we miss very much. In the end there were 9 of us in total, all of them travelling north.

A couple of hours later spits of rain start coming down again so we all say our goodnights & head off to bed. It's really nice to meet some more friendly people & enjoy a few hours of easy conversation.

Blog Day 186 Tues 8th November 2011

To say we had a restless night of sleep would be an understatement. Trish couldn't settle due to having been eaten alive by mozzie's a few nights ago whilst cleaning the dishes. And the rain barely stopped at all through the night. We start packing our bed away & one of the lady's from last night comes over with some details for us of family she has in New Zealand. She tells us to tap them up if we are in the area for a bed & some bread & jam which is really kind of her. Breakfast will have to wait this morning as the fridge turned itself of half way through the night which means the milk is not cold & there are no bbq areas to do any toast. So back on the road we go, with no idea where we are heading for today. We pass through a town called Narooma, it is supposed to have a lovely boardwalk but the rain is still pouring down & it's very misty out today so we keep going. We come past a place called Bega where we find an information centre that has a cheese centre right next to it. Upon inspection we find a little gallery upstairs housing all of the old milking tools & machinery for making cheese. Downstairs you can have yourself a taste of these fine & famous cheese's, as we haven't eaten today yet we dig in, just a shame they didn't offer crackers to accompany the cheese. Once we have tasted about all we will get away with we jump back on the road passing another small town called Merimbula. It looks nice here too & again there is a boardwalk but we continue on without stopping due to the rain. Finally we come into Eden which is where we pull into to stop for a coffee & a bit of freebie Wi-Fi. Yes it's still raining & all of these towns look rather the same. They have a beach, a small shopping town & a boardwalk/marina with a couple of café's. We end up in one of the cafés that offer free Wi-Fi. The food here looks amazing but we are being strict with our daily budget so we opt for a latte for Trish & a chocolate milkshake for Dan. Trish is taking her time with the coffee so that we can stretch out the time we spend using this café's Wi-Fi. Dan's milkshake is gone in about 2 seconds. We needn't have worried about making drinks last longer though as the sky suddenly takes a turn for the worse & starts hailing down rain, throwing in bolts of lightning, strong wind & claps of thunder. This lasts for a good hour or so, so everyone in the restaurant is hanging around. Once we have done what we needed to do we drive on to Thurra River rest area for some much needed tea & biscuits. We had planned to spend the evening here but after a couple of hours we are still on our own & there are tons of flies & wasps about making dinner seem highly unlikely. So we pull out our camping guide book & decide to drive to the next one, Newmerella Forest Logging station. Here we are treated to the skies changing colour for the sunset, gorgeous blood red/orange glow lighting up the sky. Tonight we watch Domestic Disturbance a John Travolta film before trying to get a better night's sleep than last night.