Try again. So we decided to leave behind the cold wet weather of Melbourne and head to the sun (or so we thought). Like most of the rest of the world we've been getting wet, wet, wet and unfortunately not through swimming in nice hot waters but rather through paddling ankle deep in the torrential rains we've been having. Guess what- it was forcast on the radio today that we're meant to be having snow! Snow in Australia, on the sunshine coast no least-has someone transported us back to England without us knowing?! Ah all good fun- "these are the days of our lives".

Back to the fun and frolics of Sydney. We're like a bad penny, just keep going back. We drove upto Sydney relitavely quickly, briefly stopping off at the home of Ned Kelly (Australia's equivalent of Robin Hood, infact he was Irish-that explains it, those blooming irish convicts-haha.), which was a dusty, dry quiet little town in the middle of nowhere, abit wild wild west (wicked, wicked, wild!). We also had abrief stop to clamber onboard an old submarine, unfortunately you couldn't go inside, but Bridgey had a good clamber on top.

We drove in to Sydney in torrential rains, luckily Bridgeys good directions and Jo's excellent navigating through Sydney traffic got us there safe and sound. We decided to throw caution to the wind, brave the rains and get our glad rags on for a messy night at the World bar. It was a great night out in Sydney although the morning after wasn't quite as much fun-not through vast alcohol consumption (although the bruise on Bridgeys bum from her falling flat on her face coming out of the shower could be linked to the amount she drunk). The day started of with our friend missing his flight, Jo got up at 9 o'clock only to find him still fast asleep in the bunk below, with his flight leaving at 10am! We found it quite amuzing, it's a typical Mark thing, karma came to bite us on the bum though when we went to our car only to find that it had been broken into. Lucikly they only picked the lock and didn't break a window, the little theifs nabbed Bridgeys ruck sack and our photos and memory stuff which was the worst thing but hey ho with one less bag at least the cars easier to pack, plus that bag was destined to go missing after Fiji. On that note we decided to wave goodbye to Sydney, the great escape from the city would have gone alot smoother if we'd filled GT with petrol. Picture it, us stuck in rush hour traffic about to go over the harbour bridge with no petrol station in sight-thank goodness for our jerry can is all we can say, at least we provided some amusement for all the commuters stuck in the torrential rain and Sydney traffic. If only we'd taken a picture!

From Sydney we made our way up through the lovely (although somewhat water logged) Brisbane National Park and drove over the Mt Everest of bridges (phill don't go teaching Bridgey anymore games especially when she's driving). We stopped of briefly at the beautiful Namuca heads where we had a stroll along the painted rock wall where people from all over the world leave their mark in an artistic way. Even though it's been abit miserable on the weather front we've been making the most of it, we've stopped off at a few towns enroute, ate our lunch with the Pelicans and even treated GT to a ride on a ferry.

Our next major stop was Byron Bay which is a hippy town, all be it abit commercial nowadays (for a taste of what Byron was really like in it's heyday Mulinimby is lots better). We spent the day walking along the beach then ended up at one of the cheesiest bars in town where dancing on the tables was not only allowed but actively encouraged. We danced the night away, having a laugh with a couple of guys from Phillip island (which is beautiful). We then caught up with them the next day and persuaded them to climb Mt Warning with us for sunrise. Yes a 3am start! Climbing in the dark was fun, especially the vertical sections where you had to hoist yourself up using a chain. The descent proved just as much entertainment when Benji decided to try and scare us by jumping down the rock face, needless to say that quite a few rocks came crashing down behing him as his stunt back fired and he ended up sliding all the way. He then decided to prove his bush man skills by eating the local vegetation only to find that leaves you find in the jungle quite often lead to stomach ache and a burning sensation on the tongue. We rewarded ourselves with a big fruit salad which us, the surfer boys from Cheeky Monkeys (the club in Byron) and a couple of equally intrepid English explores who we met at the top of Mt Warning shared, this is what travelling is all about! Afterwards we headed to the beach for a game of frisbee and sand sculptures.

The next day it was off to Brisbane......