Tuesday 13th August Wild Koala hunting ...again After last nights exciting X Factor – Keep going Georgie ....we still managed to get up for a nice early start this morning to drive the next stage of our journey back down South towards Sydney. Today we took a fairly leisurely drive stopping off at the lovely Port Macquarie- loads of lovely blue sea, sand and surf (obviously just the sea was blue). The shops were pretty good, and the place was spotlessly c...

Monday 12th August Bats , Birds and Bad language day Today we were out and about again mingling with nature. A short drive away from Coffs harbour is Bellingen and the Dorrigo national park (part of another World heritage site). We rambled through the rainforest tracks hunting down the elusive birds- all we managed were a couple of Bush turkeys and a Blue wren . John got a bit twitchy when the Bush Turkey tried to replay Johns Kookaburra incident – but...

Sunday 11th August Those of you familiar with our last expedition to Australia may remember the Blue Mountains guide with a knack for stating the obvious – That building is known as "the wooden hut" 'cause it's a wooden hut. Well today we met one of his female relatives at the Harbourside market. “The ones at the back are sleeveless and the ones at the front have sleeves” Must stop wearing the dark glasses and taking the Labrador out with me...

Long driving day today to get from Cessnook in the Hunter Valley to Yamba- we left at half 7 and got her around half three.(although admittedly we did have a couple of short breaks). We don't have such a long drive tomorrow so can have a more leisurely start to the day. Yamba is a lovely place close to the coast- but quite laid back.

Arrived for two nights in the Hunter valley - Wine country. Cessnook has an Frontier town feel- the shops etc are like something out of mid America. have included some pics for you. You will be pleased to know we settled for driving rather than cycling round the .valley- which meant abstaining from the wine tasting but we still had a good day at the gardens , and tootling round past all the vines.