After switching all our gear from one crappy camper to another crappy camper (but with all the doors working) we made our way a few hours down to Byron Bay. Everyone goes to Byron Bay it seems. The place was choc a bloc with young thin 20 somethings (so we fitted right in), but next to no one in the sea as it was bit fresh. The town was pretty laid back and people seemed pretty carefree, just wandering round saying "dude" and "bro" and other far-out things. The beach itself was huge. We seemed to have developed this bad habit of getting to the beach just as the clouds cover and here it was no different. Nevertheless we enjoyed plonking out butts in the sand, sky-gazing and watching the clouds roll in while supping on a red wine out of our tin cups. Good lazy times.

We stayed in a hostel. And by that I mean we parked in the car park and used their toilet and shower and kitchen. The on-site brewery (of which Brett had been looking forward to going to for 2 weeks) was issued with new opening hours the very day we arrived. Of course by opening hours I mean it was closed that day and the next day.

On the way to Yamba we stopped off at the Byron Bay Lighthouse and took a tour up it, sneaking in to get the last 2 tickets available to get the best view in town. Actually interesting to get some history on the the place too, how it works etc. but boring enough not to tell you about it here so we'll move on.

Yamba was a sleepy little town another hour down the coast, we climbed up the steep road to get to the hotel at the top for our first scooner of beer and enjoyed watching the surfers do their thing from behind the picture window before wandering on past another lighthouse and debating if we should become lighthouse geeks after noticing distinct differences and inferiorities of this one versus that of Byron. (We crack ourseleves up with our geek voices.) an amble down the hill from there led us to one of our most spectacular sunsets and really made us consider whether we should move by the coast in the States.

Next stop: Hunter Valley. Wine and cheese heaven. It took the best part of the day to get there, but got to our campsite just before dark and managed to go scope out the region and find a good rest spot for us to stop at the following night. (Its pretty spread out as you would imagine so we were chuffed to find a place to park with covered picnic area and loos that had 4 vinyards all within ½ a mile. Our indulgence day kicked off with a visit to The Cheese Factory to see the yellow gold getting made and made a few slect purchases before heading to McGuigan's winery next door where the Malay-Aussie kid behind the counter was pretty fast and loose with the tasting. Next stop was the Smelly Cheese Shop, where, as one would imagine it was funkier than Brett's feet in a contained space after he insists there's "at least one more day" out every pair of socks. After the camper we have a new rule, only one days wear per socks and pants, non negotioable.

After parking in our rest area, we stomped to a couple more wineries, sniffed, listened, nodded , "ya-ya'd" and made a purchase or too to complete our pig-out cheese, wine, chutney and salad picnic amongst the rolling vinyard hills. We were stuffed. The cheese coma subsided after a few hours and we stuffed in a bacon sandwich for dinner and had ourselves an early night.

Sydney was our penultimate port of call in NSW. We arrived in the rain at a pleasant little campsite on the edge of the city near a tube station to make it easy to get into town. There was a "free" walking tour (where you tip whatever you like at the end) which took up most of the afternoon and was really good way to see and learn about a lot of the history of Sydney and see a good cross-section of the place. It finished up at "Rocks" - the orignal buildings and first western settlements. From here we were just in time to get ourselves a good view of the Opera House before dark when the penulitmate night of Vivid Sydney was running. (A celebration of light and art. Or something.) Anyway, they projected a really cool video sequence onto the Opera House, making it apear to be other things, and essentially using it as a canvass.

The second day we went down for a windy picnic at Bondi Beach, then took a ferry around the Harbour for a different view of the city. After meeting Mark Webber, the F1 driver on the promenade, (OK it was his wax work), we stopped for a scooner of a local brew and a delicious meatball wrap then headed out to Olympic Park to watch a game of Aussie Rules Football. Crazy game. For instance the linesman always throws the ball in (backwards over his head!), there are no scrums or tackle limits like other rugby codes from what we could tell. Our team - the Giants - were s*** as it turned out. They had a flash in the middle of the game then caved but there was a fight so that made up for it. Looking at the league table after the game (bad timing) showed they were second from last. We basically just paid good money to go watch the equivalent of Cardiff FC. Who would choose to support Cardiff if they're not from Cardiff!

Next day was our last in NSW - The Blue Mountains. We had a night in "the Bush" on the outskirts of small town. We took the advise of one of the locals and went out to this beauty spot which was as few miles down a track that was clearly going to put us out on the edge of cliff somewhere - great views for the morning! However, it was the evening that was really entertaining....we took a walk up the hill from where we had set up camp after a fire engine of all things had gone hurtling up there past us. As we walked up we came across a coupt of 17 year olds, the girl clearly distraught and it turned out that their car had caught fire as they tried to get up the hill and they had but 20 seconds before the whole thing was ablaze!! We offered them a drink but they didn't drink (what kind of Aussies were they?!). Anyway, we woke to a beautiful view and took a drive further around to Echo Point to get thed "money shot" view of the valley.

Sorry no phtots yet due to internet connection but we will upload ASAP.