We got the hire car and hit the road on a beautiful Sydney scorcher of a day. A great drive through the suburbs and a bit of countryside to Woollongong - our first stop.

I had planned for us to stay at Nan Tien Temple - the biggest Buddhist temple in the Southern Hemisphere! It has conference facilities and budget accommodation with breakfast thrown in as well as the beautiful huge temple and stunning gardens so we simply couldn't pass up the chance of such a unique bed for the night. It's a sort of strange place to begin with but as the temple was closed to the public while we were there, it was totally deserted except for a few monks and staff members - it was eerie. The accomm was fine and we enjoyed creeping around the garden with it's amazing lotus pond and 100s of dragonflies. Sadly you're not allowed to take photos anywhere so we couldn't capture all the loveliness, although i sneaked one in the garden.

Being the Aquarian rebels that we are, me and Mum struggled with the rules in general - no food or drink to be brought on the premises, no shoes to be worn on temple ground etc. We had to laugh at ourselves when we first got into the room, which had been invaded by mozzies, as we whacked them all with our flipflops, and then had a nice glass of red wine and a nibble of some salami - generally all VERY unBuddhist things to do!

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