Hi from Melbourne, Victoria. Lee and I are currently in the capital city of Victoria, having crossed the border from New South Wales a week ago. Our journey since leaving Byron Bay was running nice and smoothly, but in the last few days has been fairly eventful, but I'll come back to that.

Once we left Byron Bay in NSW we continued down the east coast towards Sydney, as we had to stop there for an afternoon to meet up with a lady who we will be staying for the last 3 weeks of our time in Australia. The dear old Battle Bus had been giving us a few problems by this stage and we thought it best to stop over for a night in a city called Newcastle to see if we could get the van looked at, and also use it as a base for our trip to the Hunter Valley. We had had the van serviced when we were in Queensland and had mentioned to the mechanic that there was a few things we wanted him to check over, such as wobbly headlamp and a really anoying rattle that we could not place. When we went to pick the van up from him he said he had fixed the headlamp alignment when he serviced it. Lee barely even touched the headlamp and it wobbled about just like before so we pointed this out to the guy. His response was "yes but I've re-set the beam alignment" - this of course would be fine if we were to drive on roads that are completely flat and don't have pot-holes etc. He also said he had found the source of our rattle, and had tightened something around the pedal area, so all would be fine. We were no further than a few hundred yards down the road when the mystery rattle re-appeared. We thought about going back to him but decided he reallly musn't know his a*se from his elbow and thought we would try another mechanic somewhere else.

Arriving in Newcastle, we thought we were being really organised by going to Tourist Information to ask them about mechanics in the local area. We were recommended to try a garage just up the road from them. We took the van in and explained about the mystery rattle, and how we'd taken it to a guy somewhere else who had charged us for but not solved the problem before, and he assured us he would be able to help. The only snag was that he would need to keep the van in overnight so he could do the works on it. This wasn't too much of a problem as we were able to find a reasonably priced hotel for the night, which was pretty much in the city centre and worked out fine for our Hunter Valley trip, which by the way, was an absolutely fantastic day out. We were picked up in a little mini-bus with 3 others and driven from Newcastle to Cessnock, which is the main Hunter Valley vineyard region. We arrived at our first vineyard at 10.00am, and after a brief explaination about the wines that particular company produced, and the correct ways to test wine etc, our glasses were being filled. I was a little concerned that they only filled our glasses enough for about 3 mouthfuls of wine, but then I realised that that there were to be about 7 or 8 different wines to sample, and that was just the first vineyard we visited. I quickly calculated that we were going to be visiting 5 different wineries, each giving you about 7 or 8 wines to try, and realised that this was going to be a really fun day out! By around 12 o'clock, Lee and I were feeling nicely tipsy, and even Lee was starting to say how much he liked some of the wines they were giving us to try. After visiting 3 wineries in the morning, we were then taken to a place that makes cheese and pickles and all things delicious. After a brief stop for lunch, we were taken to another winerie and to a place that produces chocolate - again, more freebie bits of chocolate to try. Last stop was a champagne house where again, more free champers to be sampled! This was like the best day trip I could imagine, not least because the Hunter Valley region is absolutely beautiful, all rolling hills and mountains, and the weather that day was scorching, so all in all, we had a fab day out there. Then it was back to the mechanic to see what the update was. He said he was still working on it and would give us a call the next morning once he knew what was happening.

We picked the van up the next day after harrasing him by phone a few times as we hadn't heard anything from him. He told us he'd fixed the rattle and to come down and pick the van up. Just like before, we got a little way up the road when the rattle and bang noise re-appeared. By this time the garage had closed for the evening so we contined to the campsite we were booked into and decided we would go back to see him again in the morning. Lee then spent about half an hour going round the van hitting various parts of it (not quite in a John Cleese/Fawlty Towers manner, but not too far from it either!) seeing if he could locate the source of the annoying rattle. He eventually found what seemed to be the cause, and cut off the offending bit with a pen-knife. Next morning we went back to the mechanic and Lee basically had to show the guy how to check things properly, and well, how to do his job. We left Newcastle very unhappy at the shoddy work we had now experienced from 2 mechanics, thinking surely the next one we go to must be better than those 2 cowboys.

Thankfully our journey took us to a small coastal town called Port Stephens, which turned out to be really nice. It has a slightly European holiday resort feel about it, but without the crowds and burger bars, and as we have found so often in Australia so far, it had a lovely looking beach. We decided to stay there for about 3 days, which is quite a long time for us, but it was a nice relaxing place, and the weather was glorious.

From Port Stephens we drove into Bondi, Sydney to meet up with our to be landlady for the Christmas, New Year period. At first I was really excited to be driving over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but then I managed to get us lost in the deepest, darkest central business district, which was crawling with traffic, one way systems and all sorts of other funny road systems. Thankfully we managed to work our way out of it and find the address in Bondi, and the landlady and house seem like they will work out wonderfully so that was relief. Leaving Sydney, Lee drove and it was my turn to map read, except for that is the biggest contradiction in terms. I managed to send us back through a toll tunnel under the city in the wrong direction, so more headaches ensued. Eventually we were able to get out of Sydney and onto the freeway that headed for the famous Blue Mountains, which is a big tourist area about 100KMS out of Sydney.

We battled against rush hour traffic and remembered all the things we miss about the UK, knowing that we would soon be in an area of calm and beauty once again. We eventually arrived to the first main town with the Blue Mountains region to find that the Tourist Info building had shut for the day. This wouldn't usually be a problem for us as we have usually been able to source campervan sites a couple of days in advance for our next bit of journey, but slightly worryingly for us, we hadn't found any information on caravan/campervan sites within the region. There were hundreds of expensive hotels or motels if we were to be doing it that way, but we didn't want to have to pay for unneccesary hotels when we had the van. We then spent the next couple of hours driving from town to town in the Blue Mountains looking hopelessly for a campsite, but all to no avail. When darkness finally settled, we decided to cut our losses and park up in a random place called Cataract Road. We thought it was such a completely comical street name, and we were in this supposed massive tourist area, that we would have to spend the night somewhere like that. We got up early the next morning, eager to be able to get a good day of exploring the region in, but when we opened the curtains it was thick, thick fog and rain. The weather report on the radio then anounced that it was going to be the coldest day on record in that area for about 10 years, and that there was a possibility of snow. We agreed that luck was not on our side at this point, and decided to drive out of the Blue Mountains and maybe try to get there again when we are in Sydney. This then meant that we would be leaving for our next destination a couple of days earlier than intended, but it's not like we are sticking to rigid schedule.

5 or 6 hours later, we arrived in the 'exciting' city of Canberra, the capital of Australia. We had done a bit of research on Canberra, and found it that all guide books and other people's experiences of the place were generally quite dull, but we decided that we were going to be travelling fairly close to it on our way to the Snowy Mountains, and it was therefore worth the effort of driving in and making up our own minds on the place. Our first stop as usual, was to pop into Tourist Info to enquire about campsites, top 10 places to see etc, and to enquire once again about mechanics, as the van still had the ever annoying rattle, and had started to give us concern about a possible problem with either the gear box or clutch. A check in the Yellow Pages revealed that there was only 1 garage that dealt with one of these issues. We took it to a guy who convinced us the rattle was a problem with the baffles (noise reduction bit) in the exhaust, and that he could fix a new bit of fibre glass exhaust in the middle section for us the next day. Once again we planned our 'tourist activities' around dropping the van to the mechanics. I suppose in some ways it was quite lucky that there is little to do in Canberra, so we did not have to worry about getting carried away having fun and having to go back for the van. We looked at all the options of places to see and things to do in Canberra, and out of both of them, decided the most 'fun' option would be to go and see the War Memorial. This actaully turned out to be surprisingly quite interesting, and before we knew it we had been in there for about 2 hours. Quite ironically we said how it was the sort of place you actually needed a whole day to see all of as there were so many displays and information to see. We then went back to the mechanic who said he'd fixed the bit of exhaust and that we would definitley not be hearing the rattle anymore. We thought we would then take the van to a garge next door to him that specialise (supposedly) in clutch and gear box issues amoungst other things. Again, an over friendly person who said they would have a look at what was going on, whether it was clutch or gear box, and call us once they had solved it. We were worried that it may be the more expensive problem of the gear box, but we kind of suspected it was more clutch due to the nature of the problem. Later that day we picked the van up and were told that the gear box was fine, although may need a service in about 10,000KMS, but that there was a slight issue with the clutch, but they had fixed it. We picked the van up and took it for a test drive and were delighted to hear that the rattle had finally stopped, and were chuffed that the mechanic at the exhaust centre had finally solved the mystery. The only snag was that the exhasut was now so noisy, that it acutally sounded the same as when your exhaust has a hole it in as makes that awful, boy racer'y blowing type sound. This did concern us a bit, so we thought we would take it back to the guy just to check that this was normal, and true to our luck of late, the garage had just closed when we got there. Our alarm clock was set early for the next morning so we could go straight to the garage before the next leg of our journey. The guy looked a little annoyed when we turned up, but he convinced us that this was perfectly normal for a fible glass exhaust system, and that he could absolutely guarantee that the noise would die down within 1000KMS of driving the van. Although Lee knows quite a fair bit about cars, campervans do work slightly differently, and when it is a specialist part like the inside of your exhaust, we had to put our trust in the guy that what he was telling us, was the truth.

Later that day we were making our way to the Snowy Mountains, which is a mountainous area that stretches from New South Wales into Victoria. As to be expected the temperature started to drop the further into the mountains we got, but in turn, the scenery became far more beautiful. We arrived mid afternoon to a town called Jindabyne, which is one of Australia's main ski resorts. It was quite bizarre seeing all the houses and hotels all decked out like some Austrian or Swiss ski resort, with chalet style buildings. We could see snow on the peaks of the mountains which was also quite a weird thought, as only a week beforehand, we had been baking ourselves on the beach at Port Stephens. We checked into a campsite and decided to plan how we would be spending the next few days. It turned out that our campsite was to provide the best facilities we have come across on a campsite to date, and so we thought we would take full advantage of all there was on offer. Although the temperature was cool (about 15 degress or so, not too hot or too cold), the sun was shining brilliantly, and perfectly for us, there didn't seem to be another soul around the place. At the bottom of the campsite is a massive lake, and the great campsite we were staying at had power boats for hire. We decided to hire a small power boat for a couple of hours, and took to the lake with a bottle of wine and a game of backgammon.

Next morning we were up early again to drive the fairly short distance to the main ski resort called Thredbo, from where we were to do our climb of Mount Kosciuszko, Australia's highest mountain. We had dressed for the occasion as best we could, but of course being backpackers coming to a sizzling hot country, we hadn't anticipated going anywhere that we would need thermal clothing. We stopped in the ski gear shop and were advised that we would definitely need some gloves as the temperature at the top was minus 2 degrees, but with the windchill factor, would be minus 8! The first part of the ascent is a lovely relaxing and fun ride up in a chair lift. Lee found this to be particularly fun as he had never been on a chair lift in snow before. A quick mug of steaming hot chocolate at the cafe at the top of the chair lift then prepared us for the hard part - the 13KM return hike up.

Although there was snow on the mountain, it wasn't enough to ski in (as it is the equivalent of April in Australia now), but there was enough to throw snowballs and make snow men etc. We noticed that most of the snow was kind of pink in colour which we thought was quite odd, but didn't know why. An hour and a half later, we had reached the summit and stopped and ate some well rewarded mars bars like true explorers. I really fancied a bottle of beer, which is something I never crave, but it somehow seemed fitting to the achievement, but sadly for me there was no bar at the top. An hour later, we were back down at the bottom and making our to the tabogan run for some more fun. The tabogan was a man made metal casing with a trolley that you 'steer and control' yourself. You control how fast or slow you want it to go, but as for the steering part, it was just about all you can do just to stay on the thing when it picks up speed. I only needed one terrifying go on it to decided I didn't want to go on it again, whereas Lee decided that the fact that he fell out of his tabogan on the way down, meant that he should have another go to see if he could stay on - and then another go just to make sure he had perfected it. The guy that operated the tabogans then explained why the snow we had seen was pink. He said that some sort of freak storm had passed over Alice Springs a week or so earlier, and had picked up huge amounts of dessert dust. This then hung in the atmosphere, passing in clouds over big areas of Australia, but then it hit the Snowy Mountains and caused another storm, which then dumped the dust onto the snow. He showed us picutres he took the afternoon of the storm and said it was really freaky, the build up to the storm. He said it went from an average grey type afternoon, to the sky suddenly turning bright yellow. There was then the usual storm, thunder and lightening type stuff, follewed by it raining red dust! The pictures he showed us were pretty awesome.

Back at the campsite that evening we decided to reward ourselves by using some more of the campsites luxury facitlies, and headed for the spa and sauna to relieve the few aches and pains from walking up the mountain.

The day after we started our long and very tedious journey out of the mountains towards the Victorian border. We checked the map and decided to take the longer but more scenic route as against the more direct, but bland highway route. This was both a blessing and a curse, as although it did provide some amazing mountain scenery, it also meant stretches of about 65 KMS at a time of complete S bend's, which after a while just makes you feel sick and like the journey is never ending. 7 Hours later we were finally well out of the snow topped mountains, and crossing the border into Victoria. This was quite a special moment for us as we literally drove round a corner where the 'Welcome to Victoria' sign was, and then you are suddenly driving in gorgeous green hills and mountains, with cattle dotted on the hillsides - all very English seeming and comforting. Just to note, I ran over a live snake somewhere on this bit of the journey. I saw it spin round in the rear view mirror, but when we turned round further up the round to come back and see it, it had gone.

It was fairly late by this stage but we decided to still go ahead and drive to our intended destination that day - Wilson's Promontery. Wilson's Prom is a great big national park on a small peninsular of Victoria, below Melbourne on the map. You have to pay a park entry fee, but this all but covers the cost of your camping too if you decide to use their campsite. It had been threatening to rain most of the afternoon but we decided to take a chance and go on one of the many recommended walks before sunset. The park is an area of outstaning natural beauty, and you are certain to see all types of wildlife amoungst the stunning tree's, heath land and bush. We had not long set out and we came accross our first wild, hairy nosed wombat. He was not the least bit shy when we tried to take his photo, so that was a pretty cool moment for us. Also everywhere you look are beautiful parrots and galah's, so it really is a wildlife lovers paradise. Our walk took us up a mountain to a scenic lookout, where you could see a large area of the rugged coastline, soon to be disappearing under a stormy looking sunset - all very dramatic looking, but that somehow added to the beauty even more.

The next day we awoke to more rain and low level thick grey cloud, but decided to proceed with the climb of Mount Oberon, the area's highest mountain. We found the walk up to be extremely monotonous as it is all covered by endless gum trees, and you can't see anything beyond. We eventually reached the top and knew that the arduos climb had been very much worth it, for the views were simply breathtaking. Although it was thick patchy cloud, and strong wind and slight rain, we had the most amazing 360 degree view of the whole Promontery, with 3 different areas of coast line. The rain and cloud got worse as the day went on but it didn't stop us from making the most of 2 more walks, which were shorter in length, but not quite so rewarding.

We left Wilsons Promontery last Tuesday to make our way to the Dandenong region of Victoria. The Dandenongs is a region made up by about 5 or 6 very small but scenic towns (more like a small English Village). The towns all have a very rustic charm about them and they have the typical art and crafty type shops and boutiques, and each had a tearoom or 2, all in all, very English feeling. I had drawn up a list of things I had read about that I thought sounded fun, but Lee wasn't so convinced about. First on my list was a place called Skyhigh, which is a big function centre with lovely gardens and a hedge maze at the top of Mount Dandenong. After getting lost in the maze, I then was able to convince Lee that we should indulge in a Devonshire tea on the veranda of the cafe section of the complex, where we would be able to soak up the fantastic far off views of the city of Melbourne. I then amazingly was able to convince Lee that we should go to the Royal Victorian Rhodedendrun Gardens, that had been mentioned in just about every tourist booklet we had seen. We got there fairly late in the afternoon not knowing quite what to expect. When we arrived we were told that we only had an hour and a half before closing time. The gardens to our surprise were actuallly reallly impressive. The gardens were massive and lead off in all directions, providing the most spectacular colourful sights. Again, there were areas of the gardens that were planted like a traditional English country garden, so all very nice. The next day we made our way to the small traditional old train station to take a ride on the famous steam train, Puffing Billy. It's like being taken back to being a child again, as you get to sit of the edge of the train carriage, and dangle your feet out from under the bar, so you get a real close perfect look at the lovely landscapes you pass on the journey. Later that afternoon I tried to convince Lee that it would be fun to climb the famous Kokoda 1000 steps, a memorial built to commemorate all the Australian soldiers who lost their lives in the battle of Kokoda. I wrongly thought I must be fairly fit due to all the mountains we had recently climbed and all the long walks we had been doing, but to my embarassment and lack of fitness, we had to tackle it in about 25 small stages. What made it even more embarassing were the vast numbers of people who were almost jogging up it for a second time whilst I was still hauling myself up it the first time. Fit old Lee was thankfully very patient and kept me motivated to pursue the steep climb.

The day after, Thursday just gone, we got up early to make our way into Melbourne, which is where we are now. The distance from the Dandenongs is only about 40 KMS, but when I tried to drive, the dreaded clutch problem had seriously worsened, and I ended up stalling the van about a million times, most annoyingly at traffic lights and other such inconvenient places. Lee eventually had to take over the driving whilst I attempted to try to read the map. We luckily made it to the campsite on the outskirts of town, and were really pleased to see there was a garage right next door to the site. We checked into the campsite, pleased to paying for 4 nights upfront (something we never do) as we had done our research and knew that it was the Melbourne Cup weekend and the England/Australia rugby etc, and that unless we booked that far in advance, we might not be able to get anywhere else booked. The mechanic guy took offered to take the van for an inspectory test drive, and stalled it twice just trying to get if off the forecourt. I waited whilst he went out with Lee and 5 minutes later, I heard them spluttering back to the garage. He took confirmed it was definitley the clutch that was broken, and he also picked up on the noisy exhaust. We explained that the mechanic in Canberra had fixed some bit of fibre glass exhaust in and that he assured us the noise would die down. This mechanic practically laughed in our faces and said that they rotten guy in Canberra had stitched us up and that he woulnd't touch a fibre glass exhaust if we paid him - great news for us! That asides, we were grateful that he seemed to know what he was talking about and left the van with him for the afternoon whilst he checked it over. When we went to see him that night he said that he took the clutch apart and found there was a problem with part of the gear box, and another part. He said he recommended we get the exhaust done again if we are hoping to sell the van, as quite rightly, people are not going to be interested in buying a van that sounds like a bomb. We took the van to him the next morning for further inspection and to hopefully get the problems fixed. By the time we went to see him in on Friday afternoon, he told he had bad news - he had now discovered that the head gasket had broken, probably very recenlty, and due to this it has caused some bad damage to various other really expensive parts. He had the van for half day opening on Saturday, and again by the time we went back to get an update, he had found even more problems. The biggest problem for us at this stage is that where him and his mechanics had started to take the engine apaprt, the van is completely immobile. This wouldn't obviously be a problem as such if it wasn't for the fact that it is also our home. He got his guys to push the van back onto the forecourt so we could at least still use the 'home' bit of the van, so we've now spent the last 3 nights of our stay in Melbourne, on a garage forecourt. The swines at the campsite are still charging us for our site even though we cannot use it, and this is even more frustrating as their prices all get hiked up for the Melbourne Cup weekend. Would you believe that all Melburnians have a national holiday tomorrow in celebration of the stinking Melbourne Cup, great for them, not so good when your mechanic has another day they won't be working on our van.

On the positive side, we have visited a few places in Melbourne as we have had to be out of the van all day for a few days now. The weather has been pretty unpredictable, and we have had to dodge many a downpour, but generally it has been ok for walking around in. Another great positive for us is that we got in touch with our friend (well Colette's friend really) Andy Lawie who is now out in Melbourne with his Australian girlfriend, Sal. We met up with them yesterday and went out for the afternoon and evening checking out some cool bars. It was fantastic to meet up with them both, and they very kindly have offered to help us out by letting us stay with them for a few days until we know what is happening with the van - so Andy and Sal, thanks a million, we really owe you guys!

It really has been a funny couple of weeks, everything from coming from hot sunny beaches, to snowy mountains, to being ripped off by mechanics and meeting up with old friends.

Although it is all really up in the air at the moment with the van, we are hopeful that this mechanic will be the one out of all the other hopeless, rip-off merchants we have come accross to actually sort the problems out. We do feel torn as to whether to believe he keeps finding these genuine problems, or if he too could be taking advantage of a couple of backpackers. We both feel that his approach is completley different to all the others we have seen, but in the good sense, as in he seems to be really thorough with everything he is doing, and we know for a fact he is working long hours, so all we can do is put our trust him that he is not finding things for the sake of it, and that he even though it may cost a bit, it is all genuine and he can fix it. Watch this space!!

Just a quick note to say thanks to my lovely girls Kelly, Sam and Colette for your unexpected call the other day. It really was so nice to hear from you all - it really did make my day. Love you ladies! Thanks too to my mum and nan, Stella and Joe and Lisa for all your love and support whilst we are away. We totally think about you guys all time and hope you are all well, miss you and love you lots! XXX