Hello Everyone,

Two more weeks at work! Woohoo!
I really enjoyed it for about a month but the novelty soon wore off. I worked on some really cool old buildings and some new houses, each rooftop had amazing views of the city. One job was across the water in Manly, was pretty cool going to work on the ferry as the sun came up on the city skyline. After a while though i found myself stuck in the same old routine, up at 5:30am, work, home, dinner & bed.

26th of Jan was Australia day, its was over 40, even at night it was 30, didnt sleep much that night. We started drinking around 10am and at lunch time we had our first Auzie barbie. We then ventured into the city and walked down to Hyde Park where there was a classic car show, we then carried onto the Opera house where there hundreds of people picnicking and boozing. We was waiting for the much anticipated air show which turned out to be one plane that passed over about 5 times and that was it.

The following weekend we went to see DJ Marky & Stamina. It was a brilliant night, Marky even got on the mic and was singing with Stamina. Later on he picked up one of the turntables and was scratching it like a guitar. Amazing, guess you had to be there.

I think we've seen just about all that Sydney has to offer, its time to move on. We started looking at camper vans but we bought an old work van which has been converted into a use able camper. It was under budget and it will do the job. We hadn't even had our Shelia a week and we were driving down the bust Parramatta Rd and the gear stick went flacid on us so we pulled over, for half an hour and got towed home, luckily we had roadside assistance. We thought, well, Rox thought that was it, game over, "what we going to do?" "We're not going to be able to afford to fix it!" ect. but it turned out to be the gear linkage and 88 bucks later we where back on the road.

We decided to do a trial run and planned our first camping trip on Oz. We went down the coast of NSW to a place called Nowra, everything was going well, found the entrance to the campsite but we soon realised that it was about 25km of dirt track up and down hills with pot holes., could have done with a 4x4. Poor Shelia. We found ourselves in the middle of nowhere, no power and no water so we took Timber or more like he took us on a 5 mile walked round the lake and through the forest. I took the fishing rod but it as mostly used for breaking spider webs in our path, couldn't do much fishing because you couldn't get near the edge of the water. Rox saw a snake and i saw a Roo. There were some abandoned mines because it used to be a gold mining town but we didn't have the bottle to go down them. That evening we cooked up some dinner on out little gas stove and went to bed. When we woke up it had just started raining, Rox wanted to stay but i was panicing about getting the van stuck in the mud so we went home.

This weekend we went on another trip but up the coast this time, We went to Clarence town which is 30mins above Newcastle. it was a really nice campsite on the river. As soon as we got there we were greeted by our neighbours who were proper hillbilly's, they had a 13year old chihuahua, Timber tried to hump her and pee on her! I caught myself a bass and we had a swim with Timber. It was so hot, id had a few beers so i sent Rox down the shop for some cold drinks, she went to start the van but the battery was flat as she has left the lights on from earlier. She only put them on because we went through a tunnel on the way there. We gave up on the idea of a cold drink and thought we'd jump start the van in the morning so we got ready for bed. We lay in the back of the van for over an hour sweating our t*** off. literally and Timber was panting away in the front, there was no way we was going to sleep. I got up for a cig and a big Auzie bloke came over and started telling me how he was just sitting on the toilet and something was hitting him in the arse, he looked in the bowl and there was a frog in there anyway, he had a battery jump pack so we got the van going. We decided to set off that night at about 11pm as it was too hot to sleep in the van, i drove at about 40mph because we were worried about hitting a Roo. We saw on n the side of the road then we had to swerve around a dead one in the middle of the road. We got back at 2am after stopping at Maccy D's.
When we got back we put the fan on full whack and fell asleep instantly. We got up today and went and bought a fan for the van and decided to only stay at campsites with power. We also bought a sponge and gave Shelia a wash inside and out, Timbers drool and dog hair has now vanished.

We are very excited to get back into traveling and visiting new places and to see what Australia has to offer. We will keep you updated with our experiences as we go along!

Jay & Rox