Hello, Well we are now back on the coast at Batemans Bay which is classed as canberras beach although it is well over 100kms away.

Our last few days in sydney were really nice, we did an open top bus trip around the city seeing all the main sights. We then walked around all the bits we wanted to see up close. We ate lunch on the steps of the Opera House which was pretty iconic and a bit of a 'pinch me' moment. We then walked to the harbour bridge and across it which is a really long way, longer than it looks. From the other side we found a park tucked away that gave the best views over to the other side. We also had a lovely walk through a famous area called The Rocks. I was very impressed at the Guylian chocolate cafe yum!! In the afternoon we took a walk through the botanic gardens to a famous pie stall called Harrys Cafe de Wheels. It gets lots of famous customers, my favourite being Rolf Harris haha! The pie was very good but not a patch on the lamb and mint one the other day - My pie obsession is a little out of control i think. We then hopped on the bus and did a sunset tour around the byron bay area. The next day, we sunbathed on Byron Beach which was lovely the sand was very soft and actually it wasn't too busy.

We left Sydney behind late that afternoon and aimed for the Blue Mountains. We climbed all the way to over 1000metres high and a tomn called Katoomba where we stopped for the night. We ate yummy tacos that night!! The next day we set off to see all the sights we had written down. We went further into the mountains where alot of tourists cant be bothered to go and we had a walk to one of the most outstanding sights i have ever seen. It made us feel very insignificant. However the walk was a killer, lots of steps. We drove to many of the sights and got amazing views, we wish we had a wow-ometer for the day. We then stopped at the tourist centre of Echo Point where the view i have to say is amazing and well worth being touristy. So we stayed and looked at the view for a bit, a mountain that looked really close to us in comparison was actually 6kms away!! As we were walking back to Peggy, I had my photo with a real aboriginal man who took a bit of a liking to me and decided to kiss my cheek and tell G to take as long as he wanted!! Scary, so yeh we carried on all the way out of the blue mountains stopping at various sights. We also stopped at an award winning choccy shop yum. We paid 6dollars for 4 chocs but they were well well worth it - yum yum!!

From the Blue Mountains we aimed towards Canberra, stopping in Moss Vale and getting harrased by another wierdo!! We also saw our first bush fire it was huge, the smoke cloud was scarily big! We weren't expecting that much from Canberra as everyone has turned there noses up when we have mentioned it but we werent quite expecting to drive straight through it before realising that we had driven straight through it. Possibly the most uninspiring capital i have ever seen. It even had free parking right in the middle!! So we parked and went to the shopping centre to get some shopping and then read about a market that happens every sunday so we went to that which was very nice. Lots of local food products and crafts. As we were driving away G spotted a classic car exhibition. I wasn't too fussed but he got quite excited about american muscle cars?? and various other cars! I was more taken with the setting as it was held in the grounds of the Old Parliament Building which was impressive. If you stood infront of it, you could see the new Parliament Building behind it and infront down a long mall was a huge War Memorial. It had the impact of the Mall infront of Buckingham Palace. It was lovely. So anyway that was Canberra. We took a mountain road to the coast where we are now. We are very lucky as we have missed a cyclone in the north. In Mackay where we spent a day, the winds were over 200km/h. There has also been a cyclone in Fiji!! We have however, had amazing sunny clear days for the past week or so!!!

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