We left Sydney and headed west to the famous Blue Mountains. They are stunning. It was a little damp and drizzly on that first afternoon but the views were still fantastic. We drove through places such as; Penrith, Richmond and Lithgow, stopping at view points and lookouts along the way. We then went on to view the Wentworth Falls before realising that it was now getting dark and it ws raining hard so we needed to find somewhere, cheap, to stay. There was not many places to chose from, let alone budget options but the trusty old Lonely Planet listed a YHA out in the middle of nowhere - about an hour from where we were. Luckily, when we called we were told that they had accommodation available and we were given directions...good job! We finally arrived at someone's house and a lady informed us that we were indeed in the right place and it was just that we couldn't see the hostel as it was "out in the bush, a bit". To say it was concealed was to say the least! It was kind of spooky in the dark and the rain, in the middle of the bush, kind of like a scne from a Quentin Tarantino suspense horror movie! But the moment we opened the door our opinions changed as a small (eco) log cabin with a warm and homely feel was unveiled, complete with a family inside. When we woke in the morning we opened the patio doors on to the back garden which overlookd a long sweeping valley soaked in sunshine...wow...!! It was gorgeous. We then made our way to Katoomba; the home of the 3 sisters rock formation and the most popular spot in the blue mountains, stopping on the way at a place called Leura where we had a lovely waterfall walk. Katoomba and the 3 sisters is a great place, even though it's drenched in hoards of tourists. We also took the nearly-vertical railway ride down the valley (not really for the faint hearted) and completed the walking circuit through the forest at the bottom before taking the cable car ride back up the valley. It is very beautiful.

From the Blue Mountains we headed back towards the East Coast via Canberra we had a quick stopover at Bathurst before heading towards Canberra. When we arrived in the Nations capital, we instantly realised that it was a place worth missing. We quite literally drove straight through the place. For such an amazing country the capital was very understated. We obviously didn't give the place much time, so our opinions can not be trusted, but for us we just decided to keep on going.

From Canberra we headed to the coast towards Bateman's Bay - this is the place where the Sydney people come for their weekends away. So as you can imagine it had a lot of modern accomodation and right next to the sea with some beautiful coastline. We stayed here the night in one of the best campsites we stayed in. The campsite was packed be no one (apart from us) was camping, everyone either hired the cabins or were in camper van's. This meant that we were the only ones using the camping ground! We pitched our tent that night right next to the beach! We were the closest ones to the beach and could clearly hear and see the crashing of the waves from our little tent. We had dinner and chatted to some Auzzie bikers before turning in.

The next day we set out again down the beautiful, stunning coastline to Pambula Beach where we spent the night. The drive is so beautiful with the green of the fields meeting the turquoise blue of the sea and the sun shining. We hadn't been driving long when we decided that we just HAD to stop off for a coffee at this particular bar/restaurant near Merimbula, as it was elevated and had the most beautiful view over the sea and the bay. Some of you may be pleased to learn that he weather started to turn at this point and not long after we had errected our tent that the heavens opened! We had came back to our tent after going to the supermarket to find our tent had moved?! Appaently our neighbours had ahd to move the tent because it was summerged in water so they had moved it to a higher piece of ground. Thankfully, we hadn't left that much stuff inside the tent. We stayed here for a few days, although the weather wasn't that great and cooking in the rain was.. quite frankly very frustrating!However when the weather was good we did spend a lot of time on the beach.

We left here to cross the boarder of New South Wales into Victoria.. We drove to 'Lakes Entrance' with the intention to stay there for the night.. It was alovely looking place next to a lake (strangly enough!), but the whole place was absoultly covered with hotels, motels, backpacker and campsites - there was literally nothing eles there! Well there probably was - we just couldn't see anything as the was too many hotels in the way! We decided to drive on a bit further to a place called Bairnsdale. Bairndale was a lovely little town, the campsite owner had given us a list of things to do and see whilst we were there, which included the local church and town hall, the tea rooms and the local libary! What fun we had!!!

We had our last night in the tent! The next day we headed for Emerald on the outskirts of Melbourne to stay with Michael and Keryn (Sarah's second cousin and his wife).....