We ended up spending three nights at Merimbula,each day intending to leave and each day returning to reception to book another night. The campsite really was in such a perfect location as was our camp spot, we only headed into town to go to the supermarket to get supplies for dinner. As we didn't spend any time in the town, I can't really comment on that ( but it looked okay when we drove through). On our second day in Merimbula, we headed down to the beach and spent a full day there doing a spot of sunbathing and swimming in the sea. Our last day was spent by the pool and it really did feel like being at a holiday resort, reading books by the pool and sipping milkshakes from the on site cheeky mango cafe- very summer bay esqe:)

The only hairy moment arrived on our final night when the winds surged and we began doubting the sturdiness of our little tent perched high and somewhat exposed on the clifftop, however both it and us made it through the night as the winds retreated.

Reluctantly we left Merimbula for Batemans Bay on Saturday.

Although it would only normally be a two and a half hour drive between the two,we wanted to take in a lot of towns on the way. First we drove to Tathra beach, then onwards to Bermagui where we stopped for lunch. Bermagui was a lovely little place with lots of waterways and if we were heading back to this part of oz again, somewhere I'd consider staying. From Bermagui, we moved onto two very small country towns, Tilba Tilba and Central Tilba. These were very different to the coastal towns we normally stop off at but well worth seeing. Tilba Tilba is about 3kms out of Central Tilba and centres around foxglove spires, nursery, gardens and shops. It's surrounded by rolling green hills and reminded us a lot of the English countryside. Central Tilba is the larger of the two towns and looks like it hadn't been touched in the last 50 years but in a very quaint and charming way. Once again Iain strategically walked us quickly up and down the main street (to prevent any shopping taking place) by convincing me (rather easily) that we should have a Devonshire tea in the tea rooms. The scones were delicious and as it was a weekend, they had a band playing, it was a good place to while away an hour or so.

Leaving Central Tilba, we drove through Narooma onwards to Batemans Bay arriving about 5ish. We had very high hopes for our stay at Batemans, again it has one of those names that conjures up certain images in your mind (similar to port fairy) images that once there you realize are just that - your imagination, suffice to say Batemans Bay was not what we expected and even the award winning 5 star caravan park was a let down (Merimbula was only 4 and a half stars which is a terrible miscarriage of justice).

Batemans Bay seemed quite industrial with a mix of residents (the security guard at the supermarket had a black eye and the cashier at the petrol station had no front teeth) some quite old and run down buildings with okay beaches but nothing to rival others we'd seen on the sapphire coast.

We had planned to treat ourselves to a meal out but after having a look at our dining options we decided to venture back to the supermarket and save our meal out for somewhere we actually wanted to go.

Originally we had planned to stay at Batemans for two nights but quickly decided to leave after just the one, so yesterday morning we packed up the tent and headed to Canberra.

It took us about two hours to get to Canberra, which again is an interesting place to say it's the capital of Australia, we'd almost driven through it before we realized we were in the town centre! We got out and had a look round but Canberra city centre is pretty bland and we headed over Lake Burley Griffin to Parliament House. We did a tour which was quite interesting and took some obligatory snaps and then decided to head to Huskisson rather than staying in Canberra for the night.

It took us about three hours to get to Huskisson and we were a little shocked to discover that a large part of the journey involved incredibly steep winding gravel roads but our little x trail managed the journey with the style and panache you would expect from a tweedmobile and the speed you would expect from a vehicle weighed down with a Mrs T suitcase.

We arrived in Huskisson which overlooks Jervis Bay National Park around sixish, pitched the tent and then walked along the promenade overlooking the sparkling azure waters to the town to finally have a meal and a few drinks out.

We stumbled across a restaurant called Stonegrill which has a rather novel approach to dinner where the patrons cook their own food and the meal (in our case steaks) comes out on a hot stone and you cook it yourself. With my culinary skills I was a little worried about this concept however it worked a treat and as the restaurant was a bring your own (byo), it was accompanied by a few glasses of rose, before a nightcap at the RSL. In reality, it was only about 10 pm but everything closes pretty early in small towns and it was our latest night by far in a while:)

It's now Monday morning and we've just extended our stay by another night here and are going for an explore.

Xxx