Sydney and beyond

Looking down on the Bridal Veil Falls in the Blue Mountains

I finally feel I can breathe again, we've got 'our' van, they've changed the locks so the keys work and we can each have a key, it rained last night and no rain came in, the lights still seem to 'light' (though tonight will be the test as we are 'unpowered'. The more expensive van was hopeless – we were reading by headtorch. All in all we are both a lot happier. It's more comfy to travel in than the 'upgrade' and has better storage than the 'upgrade' that he wanted us to pay money for!
 

The Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains

Looking into the blue yonder of the Blue Mountains from the Three Sisters viewpoint

We are slowly gathering the bits not supplied - wine glasses, cafetier and duvet cover before we even got any van, cheese grater for 50cents yesterday (37p) and she threw in the $2 pyrex dish for B's crumbles for free! Which when you add in all the 'extras' I managed to get from the nice hire mechanic we are not doing too badly!

Just to prove we were there!

Accommodation is more expensive than we were expecting, particularly for mum, but the cabins are all lovely - kitchens, bathrooms, etc. Camp kitchens however are going to be a bit of a problem as they seem to comprise of a BBQ and microwave and a sink, rather than loads of sinks, hobs and mostly an oven as we are used to! We may starve when mum and our access to ovens goes! We too have a microwave in this van, but it only works when powered, and I’ve never cooked much in a microwave!

Sunset over Tuggerah Lake

Still not sure I'm going to enjoy Oz anywhere close to NZ but time will tell. Now we are out of Sydney where we felt we saw more people in one evening than we saw in the last three months and the traffic is atrocious at least we are meeting some 'real' people. Still feels a bit like we are in a suburb as we are either on a motorway or in housing!

Jackie feeding the pelicans and ducks the following morning

The Blue Mountains were beautiful, this strange gash in the ground caused by the eroding of layers of substrate by small streams causing huge destruction, I may miss a lot though as I feel compelled to walk around looking for Koala in trees. What we couldn’t miss though was the hoard of Chinese tourists in busses, mini-busses, cars (no rickshaws)! We are now heading up the coast, last night’s excitement was pelicans, and unpacking and making the van feel like ‘home’. 

A very talkative magpie

This morning I dashed out to feed bread to pelicans (they seem to like it, but not as much as the ducks did!) curious birds, their eyes are very close together! What I am missing though, cats! Haven’t now seen a cat to talk to for a fortnight!!!!!

Don't know what these are

Jackie is getting serious withdrawal symptoms without her cats so the very least we can do is find her somewhere to cuddle a koala, so wish us luck with that.

We are just entering what promises to be a more picturesque area, as is this and last night’ camp sites where there is lots of water, though we’re never sure whether we’re looking at river, lake or sea.  Brian took what should be an award winning picture of the sunset last night – no doubt it will appear in this blog!

Walking through the mangroves by the lake at tonights campsite at Karuah