On our last weekend at Michelle's before picking up our camper and driving to Sydney, we visited the wreck site of a Liberator Bomber Beautiful Betsy. Basically just to sum up, an ex forces plane carrying 6 RAF officers went missing in 1945; they were flying from Darwin to Brisbane on-route to one of the officers' wedding. 49 years later the wreckage of this plane was found by a park ranger, before this, despite several searches the plane and crew were never found. Even after all those years many of the remains were intact, and several of the personal belongings were found including the wedding ring, and the best man's speach, enabling them to be identified as the 1945 crew. After several items of the plane were taken away to be examined, many of them were put back, marking a 'memorial site' for the deceased. It had been decided by analysts that they encountered a heavy storm, and their radar had failed to pick up the moutain that they flew into??? No landing gear was released, and they were travelling at full speed, indicating that they didnt realise until the last possible moment of their fate. We went to see the wreck along with Michelle, Stu, Henry, Cheryl and Terry, of which the parts of the road were only accessible by 4 wheel drive. The site was quite a picture, it was like Lost only on a smaller scale, with the engines and wings scattered up to 100m apart. It was absolute carnage with twisted metal spread everywhere?? It was an amzing thing to have seen, the pictures don't really do it justice!

So after a bit of a sad weekend, saying goodbye to rellies and what not we flew down to Brisbane where we picked up our wicked campervan which we had hired for the week to drive down to Sydney. We had already pretty much decided where we wanted to stop before we left, so we headed straight for Surfers Paradise. This was a really nice surfy town, but unfortunately there wasn't a lot to do there apart from drink and shop, and we didn't have the money to do either??!!! So we left and headed for Byron Bay, where we spent 2 nights, spending most of the days on the beach. The water is a lot cooler down this part of Australia, so it is a little safer to swim in the sea without getting stung by jellyfish! It was also very windy, so Chris practised his body surfing!!!!!

After that we stopped at Coffs Harbour, and stayed in a campsite attatched to a miniture dutch village, which was quite strange - lots of clogs???? Then off to a place called Port Macquarie a bit further south. It was really nice here, again quite a surfer-y beach, and the campsite we stayed in was huge. Although there was a little bother with some Australian pikeys next door to us, as by 11pm an ambulance and the police had been called with rumours of a stabbing to someones ankle??!! We were pretty glad we had declined their ealier offer to play cricket with them!!!

After that little drama, we headed off, travelling a little inland to a place called Hunter Valley. This is a huge valley where there are lots of wineries and breweries, and you can do wine tasting tours, and also try home-grown brews of beer, fancy cheese, and delicous chocolate - it was heaven!!! We arrived here on Australia Day (and also Chris' mum's birthday!) so in the evening we headed out to the Brewery, where we ended up meeting some local lads on a night out. They took us to an irish place called Harrigans, and we had a really awesome night rolling in during the wee hours. It was probably quite a stupid thing to do as we had booked a wine tour the next day with a pick up at 8.45am! The thought of red wine at 9am is not a pleasant one after a night out...well not for Chris anyway!

The tour was great, and as well as drinking a fair wack, it was very informative. We tried red wines, white wines, desert wines, beers, ports, liquers, cheeses and chocolates. This one guy at one of the wineries kept topping up our glasses cos we noticed that he was 'born' English! We think he liked us! Oh yeah and the best part of the day was, all of it was free, all you had to do was pay for your driver and you could try whatever you wanted and it didn't cost a thing, just the way us backpackers like it!

So after spending 2 days here at Hunter Valley we left for Narabeen, just north of sydney; this is close to where we visited the beach used in Home and Away! Yep, we were sad enough to go visit Summer Bay - well we are tourists after all! It was quite a nice beach actually, bit windy though!

So after a week of travelling we dropped the camper off in Sydney, to fly to Melbourne, which is about 1 1/2 hours away. It was here where me met up with another of Chris' rellies Claire and her husband Layton......