On The Road We finally left Sydney feeling a little sad (we had an excellent time, thanks Aunty Susan, Amelia and Christopher!) but also excited about our Australian adventure. We took our first Greyhound bus to Canberra, expecting great things especially after some of those South American buses (Bolivia I mean you!) but actaully it was pretty bad. Craig nearly had to fold his legs in half there was so little room, but the driver was lovely and played a Norah Jo...

A Warm Welcome We arrived at Sydney airport and after a tent peg inspection from the quarantine guys were let into Australia! It was very different to actually be met by people at the airport, these people being our Aunty Susan and younger cousins, Christopher and Amelia. We soon settled in to their house in Mount Kuring-Gai which is right on the edge of Mt Kuring-Gai National Park. We had a very jolly Christmas, very similar to home but in an Aussie kind of wa...

The Final Leg After Dunedin we only had a few days left in New Zealand so managed to pack in absolutely loads. We camped for the night in a cute little town called Geraldine, amid forest and a rose garden. En-route we visited the Moeraki Boulders, large, grey and almost spherical they are found on a pretty beach on the tide line. They formed while deep in mudstone cliffs behind the beach and “fell out” when the sea eroded the cliffs. They were bigge...

The Windy Coast One word I would use to describe the South Coast is windy! A local told us that they’d had strong winds and heavy rain for the past three months but it was highly unusual for that time of year - summer! So we endured just over a week of grey miserable weather. It did clear up occasionally and strangely never rained at night, luckily! We only spent a night at Riverton so didn’t really see much of it but had a great evening at the camp...

Land of Lakes En-route to Queenstown we stopped for the night at Wanaka, on the shores of Lake Wanaka. It’s known as the next Queenstown and has superb lake views with the mountains of the Southern Alps reflected in the clear water. We camped at a lakeside ground and had a brief look round the town which was very pretty. We then drove over yet another pass which gave great views of lakes, mountains and Queenstown. Set beside a gleaming lake with snow-cappe...