We departed Singapore on a Qantas night flight to Sydney and didn't get any sleep, we arrived at 6am and as we landed it was dark and raining. Getting off the plane we immediately felt the difference in temperature - Australias winter!
We had booked a hippie campervan to pick up so made our way to the pick up point, it was so cold we had to wear our coats for the first time since South Korea. We were pretty tired so had lots of coffee and then we had the keys to the van and were free for 6 days. We just couldn't believe we were back in Australia - it was so nice to be back. We drove south of Sydney and before long we were in the Royal National Park, just surrounded by bush, the beautiful deep blue sky and the sounds of ozzie wildlife. We had to pull over and have a bit of a nap as we hadn't slept the night before.
Our plan for 6 days was to drive part of the Grand Pacific Drive which follows the coast south of Sydney and then see how far we could get. The first night we decided to stay in Kiama, a charming town by the sea that has two blowholes and a lighthouse. We found a big 4 campsite and then got some dinner. As it was July we were told that we should be able to spot some humpback whales out at sea, we had seen them on our last trip - unfortunately we didn't see any this time.
The next few days we drove further south stopping at Seven Mile beach national park which was pretty gorgeous - there was only us and a random naked man there - we were wrapped up warm and he was just walking naked along the beach! We went to the sussex inlet area which was just beautiful. Lots of clear lakes reflecting the deep blue sky and pelicans waddling around. We also stopped in this tiny little place which had quite a few houses but no people seemed to be around, just lots of kangaroos just lazing around - there were so many of them! We went to Jervis bay which was also just spectacular scenery. We finally ended up in Batemans Bay, and stayed at the big 4 campsite we had stayed in 2007. Batemans Bay was just as nice as we remembered, its a quite a small town with restaurants and cafes overlooking the bay. It was the coldest night we experienced there, it got down to near freezing and we just kept waking ourselves up shivering even though we were in two pairs of socks, two hoodies, thick trousers and hats and sleeping bags. We made our way back towards Sydney, stopping in Kangaroo Valley which again was a lovely little town surrounded by lush farmland -it had nice little cafes and a holiday feel to the place, just outside of the town and up a winding gravel road there was a superb lookout point, you could see far out over the Tasman sea!
Being back in Oz was such a privilege, its such an amazing country. The wildlife is unique and the sounds they make like the kookaburras haunting cackle are just so memorable, and so is the deep blue sky. Aw we love Oz! We could have just carried on driving but we made our way back to Sydney as we had a one way flight to Auckland!