Left Brisbane after "Wicked" had fixed the van and bypassed the Gold Coast by going inland (expensive weekend party place apparently which is entireley what we didn't need as penniless backpackers).

Just north of Sydney we cruised around the wine region of the Hunter Valley and found a coal seam that had been burning for 5000 years. Van decided not to allow us to select reverse gear now so we had to use a little more brainpower than usual before parking!

Stayed a couple of days in Sydney to do our washing and stuff - we've been to Sydney before and done all the touristy stuff so we just relaxed really. The "Wicked" campervan lot in Sydney took the bottom off the gearbox and removed the little safety catch that had malfunctioned - now we could get reverse any time we wanted including while drving forwards at 60mph!

We drove up into the Blue Mountains just to the west of Sydney and toured some vast caves before arriving in Bathurst for the huge annual car race called the Bathurst 1000. Despite just turning up with nothing booked we squeezed into the last site in the camping downtown and spent a long weekend watching the madness of the spectators and a bit of the racing too! On the Monday after the racing we did a lap of the circuit as it uses public roads that are only closed for the actual race itself.