Well we made it through our first Christmas down under. Started out going to the beach after opening presents. Once we got all the beach towels laid out the boys were ready for a swim.
And although it looks sunny and beautiful, it was actually cold and windy. The rest of us were holding down the fort and trying to keep the sand from getting into all of the food. We only lasted about an hour before packing up and heading back into town.
Headed to the parks by the Torrens River. The Torrens is the main river in Adelaide that splits it between the central business district and north adelaide. The park was nice and warm with no breeze, but also unfortunately with no ocean. We set up the disposable BBQs and started cooking. We even got to roast some marshmallows.
The next day Mark and I took off for Sydney. We went the long way around to see some more sights. The first town we stopped in was Deniliquin, which really didn't have any sights to see, but after 8 hours of driving we needed a break. We got up early (after I was bitten by all the mosquitoes in the town) and headed for Albury. Not a big town buy a big stop off for those traveling from Melbourne to Sydney. It is right on the Murry River and on one side is Victoria and the other side is New South Wales. We just had a quick lunch and continued on to the Snow Mountains.
After another long drive we made it to our campsite. There were quite a few people up against the river, but not many in the near by field. As such, we decided to take up a spot on the field as it looked exciting with 100s of wild kangaroos around. Soon after we learned why there weren't that many people there...really pretty logical (kangas=lots of poo=lots of flys). And I mean lots of flys. We were swating them away all night, but were a bit distracted by all the kangas coming to our camp site wanting some food.
Here is where I give a shout out to my fabulous cousin Kendra.
The next day we got up and drove to Thredbo, which is one of the countries ski resorts. As it is the middle of summer there was no skiing but we did manage to hike to the top of the tallest mountain in Australia (Mt Kosciuszko).
We had to take a chair lift up to the top of the mountain and then hike the rest of the way. I was a bit out of breath at the beginning when Mark pointed out that after the chair lift we were just at about the elevation of Denver...
After the Snowy Mountains we made it to Canberra in the ACT (Australian Capital Territory). Canberra is the Capital of Australia. One of the only capitals that was built knowing that it would be the capital (b/c Melbourne and Sydney were fighting too much over which one should be the capital). So what is there to do in the capital....not a whole lot. Mainly government buildings and museums - which is what we did. The National Portrait Gallery which had paintings, drawings, photos and other artistic mediums portraying the influential Australians throughout history. It was actually pretty entertaining, although we didn't do the entire museum. We also hit up the National Gallery of Australia which was having an exhibition of the post-impressionism from Paris. I was excited b/c it was the first time I was able to see the real Starry Night from Van Gogh.
From Canberra we headed to Sydney for a few nights of sleeping in a hotel. Our hotel was about a ten minute walk down to Cogee Beach and a 20 minute bus ride to the city. We took full advantage of it all. In short we spent a few days at the beach, Cogee has these areas called baths which a like little swimming pools surrounded by huge rocks.
We also went down to the city and saw the opera house, the Sydney beach, the rocks (a suburb by the bridge), out to Manly (across the bay), and Darling Harbor (the place to be if you are a tourist). We were able to meet up with Sal, Keith, Becky and Rich for a nice (pricy) lunch at Cafe Sydney. Had great views of bridge and the opera house and some really nice food.
After bringing in the New Year at Cogee beach with a bottle of champagne and some true Australian shot glasses, we had a good rest and headed out for some more camping. Headed up the coast to Myall Lakes National Park. We stayed there for two nights where we were camped behind some sand dunes. Right on the other side was an amazing beach with and even better ocean. Did some hiking, some swimming, made a fire, played lots of cribbage and did some star gazing.
Once well rested, we packed up the car and started our long drive home. The first day we drove for 12 hours to a small town called Hay. Stayed at the caravan park and was ecstatic to take a shower. Woke up the next morning and another 6 hours to Adelaide. After 11 days and 3,334 km we have officially toured the south east region of Australia.
