Day 29: Time to go back to Brisbane! We sat on Buddy's back step having breakfast when Caroline spotted a dolphin near the shore. Sure enough it came up to the surface again as it swam by. Minutes later we spotted a group of dolphins a little further out and watched as they swam out of the river towards the sea. Not a bad way to start the last day of our holiday. Onwards a short distance to Shark Bay for a final paddle. The sunny weather hadn't turned out for ...

Day 28: This morning we carried on along the waterfall way. The journey took us through rolling green fields which reminded us of home, little wonder that this is known as New England. Our first stop was Ebor Falls which has an upper and lower fall, both of which were impressive. A short stroll took us from viewing point to viewing point. Just a photo stop so quickly on our way again. Second stop was Dangar Falls just outside Dorrigo. A smaller fall, but we vi...

Day 27: First the good news, Gareth has kind of managed to fix the van. After a total of about 3hrs of playing in the dirt under Buddy, and in the fuses we now have working indicators and dashboard gauges, just no reversing lights. Hopefully this will let us get back to Brisbane. Due to the breakdown we were still some way short of the waterfall way when we set off. First stop was Armidale for supplies. A pretty little town with a good range of shops we were ab...

Day 26: Today started well, but things started to go wrong pretty soon. Not long after setting off we noticed that Buddy's temperature and fuel gauges weren't working. No big issue, we filled up with petrol last night and we wouldn't be doing any hard driving today. Just as we were entering Maitland Caroline noticed that the situation was worse than that and in fact the indicators had also stopped working. We pulled in and Gareth did his best auto DIY, and repla...

Day 25: We were staying another night in the Hunter Valley so a relaxing day ahead. The sun was out and by breakfast it was already too hot to contemplate anything strenuous so we headed to the Hunter Valley Gardens. We wandered aimlessly around the gardens enjoying the peace and quiet (lot of wine was drunk last night). The gardens are relatively new, and have themed areas, our favorite was the story time section which brought to life nursery rhymes and childre...