Day 239 - Why is Lakes Entrance called Lakes Entrance?

Hi People, not long now till I'm home, but I'm still perservering with this blog. It will be nice in a way not having to write any more.

I woke up in the nice peace and quite of country Buchan. And spent a lazy morning, doing a few self chores before heading off. I drove down to Metung, on the coastline, but didn't spend too much time there, just enough time to get some food and bait. I found myself a space along side the Tambo River, and for the next 2 hours sat in a chair and didnt have to do much. No fish, but that was OK, I just sat in the sun and read a book.

Once finished there, I headed down to Lakes Entrance, the lovely Lakes Entrance. I headed down to the Fish Co-op, but found it to be closed. I only went there cause I went there in grade 6, oh the memories.

After that I went for a walk to the Entrance of the lakes system. It was a lovely walk, and when I got to the entrance I was pretty impressed. Although the entrance is only about 20 metres across, so much water comes in and out with the tides, and you could tell. The water was absolutely rushing.

Not much else to tell you for today. Looking forward to watching the cricket tonite. Go Aussies!!

Fish Co-op

Entrance to the Lakes

Day 238 - Wanna go do a cave???

Hi All, hope you are well, and I hope you won one at the races if you put a bet on. As for me, as I was camping, I woke up at 5:45, and didn't fall back to sleep. But I did have a great sleep.

After cleaning, having breakfast, and packing up by 7:30, there was no much to do, but go for another walk. I headed down the beach, to another camping location, called Mueller Inlet. There was no one there, but it was a lovely walk, going along the beach. I so wished I had my fishing rod in hand, and the water looked better than yesterday.

After that walk, I jumped in the car, and headed back to town. From there is was a lovely 2 hour drive to the small town of Buchan. And yes, it's small, only about 250 people. But it's famous for caves, and that's where I went. They have 2 caves available there, Royal and Fairy, and I went to both of them. Both were stunning, with so many glassy stalagtites and stalagmites, and some huge other things I didn't know the name off. At times it was really squishy to get through, I only managed to bang my head once.

To finish off the day, I found a small river to try my hand at fly fishing on, but once again no luck. I'm still determined to catch a trout with a fly rod before this holiday finishes (in 8 days time).

Catch ya

Mueller Inlet

Royal Cave

Fairy Cave

Day 237 - Croajingolong National Park

Hi Folks, today was a big day for 2 reasons. 1. my travel partner, Cade, left, leaving me alone again. And 2. I actually went camping again.

Today I went to Croajingolong National Park (now called CNP), a huge NP along the eastern coastal part of Australia. When I got to the campground, at Thurra River, there were only about 3 other tents, so I easily picked a spot that I felt was good value, near the beach and the toilet. It felt good to put up the tent, blow up the matress and get out the esky.

Once settled, I went down to the beach, and found it looking fantastic for fishing, so I rushed back and got my gear. On my first cast, I brought in a nice sized salmon, and on my second I caught a little one. (Cade, I just didn't need you around to spoil my catch). Not long after that, the wind started really blowing, and it made it almost impossible to fish.

So, I then headed on to a couple of walks. The first one took me to the biggest sand dunes in Australia, along a 2km walk. The first part of the walk was mapped, but once you hit the dunes, you looked after yourself. And in doing so, I got completed lost, well almost. I was looking for one dune in particular, that backed on to the river, and to get to it, I got so many scratches on my legs and arms, it pretty much dehydrated me. Once I found the river, I decided to follow it home, even though the old walking path along it was no longer there. In doing so, I ended up getting pretty wet, as I had to cross the river a number of times. Oh, and Steve, no snakes this time!!!

After having a beer to hydrate myself, I headed up to the Pt Hicks lighthouse. A lovely 5 km walk along the beach, getting there just as it was closing. Doh!

After that, I cooked dinner, and settled in for the night. Peaceful night.

First cast - a lovely Salmon

Biggest sand-dune in Australia

Pt Hicks Lighthouse

Hi Guys, another beautiful day. Today Cade and I hired a boat in Mallacoota, and spent 6 hours fishing for bream and other local fish. Unfortunately, the day didn't work out well, and we didn't catch any fish at all. Phew, at least I didn't look any competitions today.

So 6 hours on a boat. Not too bad. At least we got time to get to know each other. :-)

Anyway, tomorrow we'll be going different ways. Cade back home, me to a national park if the weather holds out.

Ciao

Day 235 - Mallacoota

Hi Everybody, I hope things are going well. For me, only 12 days to go of my 8 month trip around Australia. It's strange to think that I've spent most of this year on holiday.

But speaking of holidays, we left Bermagui today, and ended up back in Victoria. On the way, Cade and I made a few stops, doing the real touristy thing. First stop was Tathra, about 40km south of Bermagui. There we found a lovely cafe, where we had a great breakfast, whilst looking at the lovely views of the ocean.

From there we headed to Bega, a town I've driven through about 40 times, but never stopped at. There we went and visited the Bega Cheese factory, and got to test lots of cheese. Mmmmm.

After that we headed to Merimbula, but stopped a couple of kms short. Like Bega, I hadn't really experienced Merimbula before, so headed for there and came across Magic Mountain. Magic Mountain, a theme park similar to the ones in the gold coast, but at a smaller scale. We spent the next 3 hours doing toboganning, water slides, mad mouse rides and mini-golf. Unfortunately we had to get elsewhere, otherwise we'd have stayed longer.

It was then a drive down to Mallacoota, and with that drive, I finally made it back (with my car) to Victoria. I left the state in late March, and this is the first time back, apart from a few flights.

Mallacoota's an interesting town. A very small town, as far as town centre is concerned, but the water-fronted caravan park is huge, and quite full, even at this time of the year.

Day 234 - And the score is 3 - 0

Hi Folks, it's been another busy day for me. After getting up early due to the tidal times, Cade and I headed down to Catagee beach, my favourite surf fishing place in the whole of Australia.

The weather wasn't great, but it didn't take long for Cade to bring in a nice salmon. And it wasn't too long after that I brought in 2 of my own. But that's where it ended for me but not for Cade. Over the next 3 hours, he brought in 3 more salmon, to give us a total of 6 for the morning.

After fishing on the beach, we headed to the Horseshoe Bay hotel for lunch, where we had a lovely Parma.

After lunch, and a shower to get rid of all the fishy smells, we headed down to the local golf club, to have a lovely 9 holes. The game was actually tide, with the scores the same after 8 holes, but I couldn't cope with the pressure, and lost by 1 shot. Bloody Cade winning evening.

From golf club, we headed back to the pub, this time for dinner, where we spent a couple of hours there. We managed to work it out, to only spend $5 each, and have dinner and 6 drinks. What a place.

Anyway, we're moving south tomorrow, I'll actaully be getting my car back in to Victoria for the first time since March. scary!!!

Day 233 - Fishing in Narooma pt 2

Hi folks, oh, it's good to be back online. 2 days in Narooma, and no internet connection. I'm now in Bermagui, and all is good.

This morning, Cade and I got up early, as we'd booked on a fishing charter for the early morning. When we rocked up to the boat, there was 5 other poeople on the boat, rather than 1, but that just had it more fun.

We headed north out of Narooma, rather than towards Montague Island, and it wasn't long before we were settled in a spot, with our lines in the water. Over the next 6 hours, we caught all sorts of fish, although nothing too large. Plenty of snapper and morwongs though.

After the charter, we headed down to Bermagui, and headed in to town. Rather than staying at Hubara, where Steve and his family own, we got ourselves a really flash 2 bedroom unit, walking distance from everything. And as such, we spent the evening walking around town, heading to the club and the hotel, as well as the wharf, which had had a brand new face lift.

We're hoping to go and do some surf fishing tomorrow, and maybe a bit of snorkelling or golf. It's a hard life.

Fishing Catch

Bermagui - Blue Pool

Day 232 - Fishing in Narooma pt 1

Did I say a few beers? Oh my god, both of us had such big hangovers. It took most of the morning for both of us to come good. With our fishing charter being cancelled, we hired a dingie and headed out fishing in the inlet for a few hours. For the first 3 and a ½ hours, we hadn’t really caught much, with me just catching 3 little fish. But within the last 15 minutes, Cade caught 6 fish, including snapper and trevally.

After the fishing, we were both starting to feel tired again, so we headed back to the caravan park resort, and had a lovely swim. We’ve managed to get on a fishing charter tomorrow morning, so will be on the boat at 6:30am. Yippee!!

Mini Snapper

Cade and his trumpeter

Hi Folks, I hope all is going well, and if you bet some money on the races, I hope you won a few.
For me, I left Canberra. And I have to say, you could spend many days in Canberra, it’s such a diverse place to go to. On my way out, I headed to the Australian Institute of Sport. And luckily for me, the Australian Tae Kwon Doe championships were on there. Getting to watch all sorts of people, from 5 to 50 years old bashing each other up is so interesting. I also did a tour through the AIS, where I got to see where all the budding and current athletes train and work out. I got to see Volleyballers, gymnasts, swimmers and so on.

So I left Canberra, and headed to Narooma, a place I’ve been to many times before. I hunted down the tourist information office, and organised a fishing charter for the next day. Only to find out 2 hours later, that the charter had cancelled. Doh!

Cade turned up later in the evening, and once he was relaxed, we headed in to town for dinner and a few beers. Well, maybe more than a few beers.

Aussie Basketball Uniforms

Kid Gymnasts

Day 230 - Canberra part 2

Hi Folks, another big day here for me in Canberra. I wont go into a lot of detail today, but here's the jist of what I did today.

I first went to Manuka Oval, that place where they have a couple of AFL footy games each year. A lovely oval, it's a shame we'll never see Collingwood play here.

From there I went to the National Portrait Gallery. This gallery has hundreds of portraits in it, a must see for all those people who come to Canberra. Apart from the usual people being portrayed, like Captain Cook, you could also see portraits of people like Midnight Oil, Glenn McGrath and Angry Anderson.

I then headed up the hill to the old parliment building. This was re-opened a couple of years ago, and is now a museum. You could walk around all parts, such as the senate area, the opposition area, as well as the prime minister's office. It was a very interesting place , knowing you could walk around all parts of it. The funniest thing to me was that there's 2 gardens inside the building, and for some reason, there are lots of weddings there each year.

Of course, once I left the old parliment, it was only a short stroll up to the new one. Much prettier, but you couldn't get in to as much. And it was a shame that I was there on Friday, as those politicians dont work Fridays.

From there I headed to the Lodge, the home that Julia has when she's in town. This place is huge, it's at leave 4 acres, and there's a big fence all the way around. Plus plenty of cameras too.

After that I headed back to my car, to head to the Dinosaur Museum. Unfortunately, like politicans, dinosaurs don't work on Fridays. So I headed up to the Telstra Tower instead, a building on the highest hill in town, where you could see the whole of Canberra. Lovely view, at 860 metres above sea level.

That ended my big day. I headed back to my hotel from there, and proceeding to do my clothes. Tomorrow I head to the coast again, and will catch up with Cade for a week or so. So the fishing competition will start tomorrow.

Ciao

Portrait Gallery

Old Parliment

Parliment

The Lodge

Day 229 - Canberra

Hi everyone, with only a few weeks to go, I'm really finding it hard to write my daily blog. I'm almost wishing I'd have a day that doesn't have internet connectivity, but oh well, I can perserve.

Today was a big day. Firstly, it started with me leaving the chalet that I'd spent the last 2 days in, as the only customer. But I wasn't leaving the area yet. After a little chat with a local yesterday, I went in search of the Thredbo River, to do a bit of fly fishing. And I have to say, it's been about 6 years since I've tried, and for the most part, I actually was casting pretty well. For the first hour I didn't see any fish, so I moved up and down the river, and then I got all excited, I spotted a nice big brown trout. For about 20 minutes I casted the fly near it, but it either didn't have any interest, or knew what my game was.

So I moved further down the river, and found about 10 trout together. They looked a little different, they were all quite dark in colour. Once again, I casted around them for about 30 minutes, trying 3 different flies, but to no avail. So Cade, you're still one up on me in this regard.

After a few hours, I decided it was time to leave, hey my arm was pretty tired, and headed off to Canberra. It was a lovely drive, still up in the mountains. Which reminds me, the drives up to the top yesterday were so smooth, there was no slow curves, I could travel at about 80km/h all the way up to the top of Thredbo.

Anyway, I arrived at Canberra, and the first place I went to was the Royal Australian Mint. This is the place that they create all the coins for our lovely country. I got to walk around the "factory", looking at all the coins being made. Oh, and I could even buy a special $1 coin, with all the queens and kings of the 20th century on it, and it only cost me $3.

After the Mint, I headed to the Australian War Memorial. Now, for anyone interested in Austrlian History, or is interested in war, this place is a must. It's broken up in to two sections, 1. a memorial area for all the Australians who have given there lives for their country, and 2. a museum based on both the 1st and 2nd world wars. Totally enthrawling, so much to see and read. The amount of guns, uniforms, pictures and planes in this museum is outstanding.

After the war memorial, I headed down to Lake Burley Griffin, a lake in the centre of town. It's amazing for a couple of reasons. There is a driveway that runs straight from the memorial over the lake and to parliment house. And it's exactly a kilometre from the memorial to the lake.

Inside the lake is a water jet created to commerarate the bicentanary of Captain Cooks landing. This water jet shots up 147m into the air. Quite exciting.

Anyway, after all that I headed to my motel, to kick back and relax. The only issue is that tomorrow's going to be an even bigger day.

Royal Australian Mint

Australian War Memorial

Captain Cook Memorial Water Jet

Look at all the snow. And to think, the coldest it was today was 11 degrees. Fantastic.

If you had've read yesterday's entry, you'd know that I was planning to climb to the summit of Mt Koscuiosko, but due to too much snow, I wasn't able to. But still, I headed up there, to Charlottes' Pass, to begin the 18km walk (as much as I could). And what a lovely day. No clouds, no wind.

The walk up to the summit was a lovely walk. Up until I got to the Snowy River, it was a constant slight incline, making easy walking. Unfortunately, once I got to the river, the snow overtook the road/path, and made walking any further almost impossible. So what did I do? Played in the snow of course. And a few minutes later, a snowman was created.

So, after turning and walking back to the car, I drove around a few places, such as Perisher, Smiggin Holes, until I found another walk to do. I did the Rainbow Lakes walk, not in snow, and was a little dissappointed. The lake was lovely, but didn't look like a Rainbow at all.

I then headed up to Thredbo, where I walked around for a while, looking at all the cabins and chalets, all empty of course.

The day ended the way yesteday ended, me fishing and not catching any fish.

Ciao

Mount Koscuiosko

Me and the Snowy River

My travel friend

Rainbow Lake

Day 227 - Up to the mountains.

Hi People, good to hear from you all.

Today was a day of ups and downs. I say this, as I drove for 5 hours in the snowy mountains, and boy, did I drive up and down a lot. I'm just so happy that I was driving and not the passenger, I might have been sick.

But I digress. I left Wagga Wagga with a smile on myself. It was good to get out of there. It was a pleasant day's driving, with the weather going up to about 18 degrees.

My first stop of the day was to Yarrangobilly Caves. That's right, another cave. But there was a difference. I got to walk through a lovely cave, by myself, with the lights coming on and off as I moved through. I was a little scared that they wouldn't come on, but all worked OK. It was actually a really big cave system, the only down side was that with all the rain of late, I got pretty wet in there.

To make up for getting wet in the cave, I went to the other feature of Yarrangobilly, a thermal pool. In the middle of the bush, they have a nice large pool, where the water comes from down deep, and is at a constant temperature of 27 degrees. Lovely.

After that, I spent quite a bit of time going up and down mountains. It was here that I saw my first snow for the trip, and hopefully will see lots more tomorrow. I also drove past the statue of a giant trout, as the area is renowned for trout fishing.

When I got to Jindabyne, I headed in to the tourist centre to talk about tomorrow. I want to climb to the top of Mount Kosciuszko, but hadnt found out a definitive answer on how to go there, there's about 5 different ways. So, here's the bad news. The short trip, 5km each way, is totally snowed over, and there's no markers. The only way up is the 9km each way trip, and for about 10km of that trip, I'd need to wear snow boots. I went next store, to look at the boots, and worked out that I probably can't walk that far in them. So tomorrow I'm go up there and just walk as far as I can.

From there, I grabbed my fishing rod, and went fishing for some trout. For about 3 hours I sat there, and didnt lose a bait. Doh! But I'll try again tomorrow.

Thermal Pools

Giant Trout

Day 226 - What a day in Wagga Wagga

Hello to a new week. I hope the weather's nice and warm where-ever you are. For me, it got a little warmer today, I think it got to 15, I almost thought about going in to shorts again. Almost.

OK, so with my main activity of the area, fishing, being denied due to flooding, I set about doing a few zoo/museum activities for the day. And as I'm in a small country town, I decided to walk around.

My first stop what the Riverina Museum, a museum of the things of the area. Unfortunately, this museum is closed on Mondays, so I had to move on. And that involved going to the Sporting Hall of Fame, where they have photos and items of interest for famous sports-people from the area, such as Wayne Carey. Unfortunately, this place is also closed on Mondays. What the?

So I headed down to the zoo, all in the same area, to find it's only a zoo for simple aussie things, such as kangas and emus, things I've seem (and hit) heaps of times on this trip, so I didn't stay too long.

Slightly frustrated, I went to the RAAF Museum, as I saw a few old airplanes when I drove in to Wagga. I got to look at 4 planes, which were pretty cool, but lo and behold, the actual museum is only opened on the weekend.

At this point I was pretty frustrated, so I headed to the local fishing shop, to get some advice, and their advice was to keep driving, there was nothing here. I thought about it, but it was going to be a 2 hour drive to get to a good place.

So, when you've done everything you could possibly do, what do you do? Go to the movies don't you? I went and saw Resident Evil 4 (in 3d). Not too bad, but I've had a thing for Milla ever since the 5th Element.

Tomorrow should be much better. I'm off to the mountains, heading up to Jindabyne, hopefully to do some good fishing, and maybe climb a mountain or 2.

Cheers

RAAF Museum - Well sort of

Wagga Beach Caravan Park - this is the entry point, where's your boat??

Day 225 - Off to Wagga Wagga

Hi folks, I hope you had a good weekend. Me, if was freezing, and also bloody windy.

When I left Goulburn it was a barmie 7 degrees, but at least by the end of the day it'd warmed to 14 degrees. My shorts will be back on hopefully in the next few days.

OK, so what did I do today? I drove to Wagga Wagga. On the way, I did a few things, and no, no waterfalls today. My first stop was Cootamundra and whilst there, I did 3 things. 1, hunted down some cootamundra wattles, of which the locale is famous for. 2, I went to the Captains Walk, where there's a sculpture/head of every Australian Cricket Captain in it. Did you know that Gilchrist is in it, and he even has his big ears in the sculpture. And 3, I went to the birthplace of the greatest cricketer of all time, that's right, the original home of Sir Don Bradman.

From there, I headed to Gundagai. Now there wasn't much to see there, hey I've scene the Dog on the Tuckerbox a number of times, but I still had to stop again.

After that I drove to Wagga Wagga. Now all day on the radio I was hearing that Wagga was flooded and that there'd been 70 cars so far washed away, but I got into town OK. Just for a bit of cheek, I've got myself in a motel that sits right across the road from the flooded murrumbidgee, but it doesn't look like it's going to cause me any issues. Oh, and I'm on the second floor, just to be save.

The bad thing about the floods is that I wont be able to do any fishing, which is one of the main reasons I came this way. Bloody NSW, it just hasn't been that good to me.

Bradmans Birthplace

Murrumbidgee River - Flooded

Day 224 - Yes I have a problem

Hi folks. Just for something different today, I went and saw a few waterfalls. Hey, there were on the way from Wollongong to Goulburn, so I couldn't miss them. Yes, I do have a problem.

Anyway, I went and saw 3 waterfalls, all with little walks. I should say now that it was about 4 degrees when I was doing these. I first went to Fitzroy Falls, and then followed it up with Twin Falls and Belmore Falls. All lovely falls.

After those, I drove to Goulburn, where it was a warm 8 degrees. At this time I decided it was time to put on jeans, I haven't done that for ages. I didn't have too many things planned for Goulburn. I did want to go to the Goulburn Valley Fruit factory, but apparently that's in Shepparton. So I headed to the Goulburn Brewery instead. Apparently this is the oldest brewery in Australia. Unfortunately it wasn't that great, it seems like it hasn't been used for years.

From there I headed to the Big Merino. Now last time I was in Goulburn, it was on the north side, but in the past few years they moved it to the other side of the road. Now, this sounds easy, except that the sheep is about 10 metres high, and 20 long. Very impressive.

After all this walking aorund in the cold, I needed a drink, so I headed in to the Soldiers Club for a few beers and dinner.

Now, to find out whether tomorrow's location is under water or not.

Day 223 - Wollongong

What a lovely day's weather. Apparently Melbourne had it bad, but even in NSW, the weather wasn't great. It certainly put a dampener on doing any fishing today.

I left Bondi in Sydney this morning, and headed south, heading towards Wollongong. On the way, I went through a small National Park, called Royal National Park, but as the weather was pretty bad, it didn't look that good to me.

Once I got out of the NP, I came across the road bridge I was talking about yesterday. Now this cliff bridge was in some ad on tv, I think a car ad, and the desire to see it was pretty high. The bridge is about 650 metres in length, and it's a real tourist attraction. There's a car park at the end of it, and there was plenty of people, me included, who stopped to walk along it, bad weather or not.

Once back in the car, I drove right past Wollongong, and headed to the small town of Kiama for lunch. It would have been a lovely town, if the weather was good. I headed down there to see a blowhole on the coastline, but it wasn't really blowing while I was there.

So I headed in to Wollongong, and got myself sorted into a caravan park, and that's when the weather turned a little worse. I resigned myself to reading a book and relaxing for the afternoon.

In the evening, I headed in to town to watch the NBL, Wollongong Hawks vs Gold Coast Blaze. It wasn't overly exciting, the biggest thing was seeing Stephen Hoare and Pero, both ex-Tigers players in the team. Neither played well, and the Hawks won by six.

So the forecast for tomorrow is 10 degrees. I can already feel the cold coming.

Cliff Bridge

Kiama Blowhole

Day 222 - And on to Bondi

Good morning friends, I hope your day went well. Mine started well, and remained that way.

I started the day by going down to the Manly Mall, to have breakfast. It's strange, but that area is so quiet, maybe it just livens up late at night??

From there I drove the wonderful streets of Sydney to get to Bondi Beach. Now, the place I'd booked looked fantastic on the web, not so much in real life. But that's the way things are most of the time in tourism isn't it.

I had a few goals today, and the first one was to walk from Bondi to Coogee. This is about a 6km walk, following the coastline the whole way. It was a lovely walk, I got to see lots of people surfing, but not many swimming. And by the time I got to Coogee, I'd brought on a huge sweat all over my body. if only I'd brought bathers.

At Coogee, there was 1 thing I had to do, I headed in to the Coogee Bay Hotel, we're I'd two very drunken nights with Steve and co a number of years ago. Steve, I've found a cab for you....

After lunch at the pub, I walked up to the Prince of Wales Hospital. This was where I was operated on 3 years ago, and I thought I'd see if I could pop in and say hello to Dr Teo. Unfortunately he was busy, so I left a thank you card with his assistant. I wonder if he'll get it.

From there I headed to Kings Cross, via the Bondi Junction. Now, I haven't been to Kings Cross in many years, and it seems to have changed a bit, although there was still ladies offering services, it was hidden at massage stores this time. No girl walking around in just a g-string this time.

So, I'm off to Wollongong tomorrow, going to try and go via the coastal drive. I'm trying to find that road bridge that follows the coastline, you know, the one you see on tv ads sometimes.

Bondi Beach

Coogee Bay Hotel

Porky's in Kings Cross

Day 221 - Into the heart of darkness....ok, I'm in Sydney

Hi everybody. I hope you're smashing today.

I've had a big day. It started by leaving Newcastle and driving to Manly in Sydney. It was a lovely drive, well, at least the first 85% of it was. Once I hit Sydney proper, it became a slow drive though lots of small roads, but anyone who's been to Sydney would know what I'm talking about.

After checking in to my motel, I headed out to the beach front, for a short walk to the ferry terminal. Although there were plenty of surfers out there, the weather wasn't good enough today for swimmers and sunbathers. In fact, the beach was closed due to previous rain causing issues.

OK, so you all know that to get anywhere in town in Sydney, you use the ferry system. Issue, the ferry from Manly only goes to Circular Quay, so I actually had to take 2 ferries to get to the zoo. Anyway, the zoo was pretty nice, apart from being on a step hill. Lots of different animals, including some you could get up and touch yourself. My only gripe was that a lot of the animal cages were closed.

From the zoo, I headed back to Circular Quay, so I could get to Milsons Point. I went there for 2 reasons. 1, to see what the place looks like that I went to last year for NYE, and 2. to go and see Luna Park. Unfortunately Luna Park was closed, but I did get a chance to walk around to see what it's like.

From there I climbed up the harbour bridge, and walked from the North side to the main part of the city. I have to say, the walk for me wasn't great, as every time I stopped, I could hear the bridge creaking. Scary as!!

After that I walked around town for a little while, then noticed a storm coming in, so headed back to Manly to miss out on the rain.

Catch you tomorrow

MMMMeerkats

Luna Park

NYE Location last year

Day 220 - Off to Port Stephens

Hi Gang, lovely day today, I hope yours what the same.

As I found out yesterday, Newcastle is a little on the boring side, so I headed north about 50km to Port Stephens. Now just to let you know, Port Stephens is not a town, as I thought, but a region. And the region is all set up for holidays coming up from Sydney I guess.

Now I hadn't done any surf fishing for ages, so after about an hour of roaming around, trying to find the right beach, I came across an area called Fishermans Bay. With a name like that, I couldn't not go there.

Now it didn't take long for me to catch my first. Unfortunately it was a big piece of seaweed. But not long after that, I caught another piece, and another piece and another. Then something that I saw on the news this morning made me kick myself. With waves of up to 7 metres up on the Gold Coast, we were always going to have issues here, and all the seaweed had been ripped up. I spent about 2 hours there, just hoping something would happen, but no, I only caught seaweed.

From there I drove up to Nelson Bay, the main town of Port Stephens, where I had lunch in a pub on the wharf. I lovely already to go to, if the weather was nice.

On the way back to Newcastle, I headed to the Stockton Beach dunes. Apparently this is the longest "big" sand dunes in the Southern Hemisphere. Oh well, there was lots of sand.

From there I headed in to the cinema to see the movie Buried. Very interesting movie, but only 1 actor, and he was buried the whole time. Wouldn't have had to spend must on the movie I think.

So off to Sydney tomorrow. Going to do a big run around, and do a few things I've never done before. I hope the weather holds out...

Day 219 - Is this a hangover I feel?l

Nar, not really. Luckily I didn't end up drinking as much as a normally do on yesterday's wine tour, so I woke up feeling pretty fine.

But it was time to leave the Hunter Valley, and head off to Newcastle. And my first port of call in Newcastle was Nissan, as I was 3,000 km overdue on a car service. This is only my 4th service since I started, the others being in Adelaide, Kalgoolie and Darwin.

So while my car was getting serviced, I spent a few hours walking around town. And I have to say, this town is boring. For 500,000 people, the CBD was so quiet. I had lunch in the main mall, something like Bourke St Mall, but I think I passed about 10 people the whole time I was here.

From there I headed down the wharf to view the Wharf Tower. Now this tower is strange. Have a look at the image below. Does it remind you of anything?

After seeing that, I needed to go for a walk, so I walked for about 3 hours around town. It was nice to see the beach again, after about a week. And with sunshine.

Anyway, my car was serviced pretty quickly, and even cleaned, yippee, and so I took it to the main shopping centre. Now, a little gripe. Shopping centres don't really cater for tall cars, I think I drove around for about 15 minutes trying to find a tall parking spot, before eventually parking out of the shopping centre itself.

Now, even though Newcastle seems like a boring place, the accommodation in the heart of it is expensive, so I staying in an apartment, about 5 km out of the CBD. And funnily enough, it reminds me of Cade's old Docklands place, except with about twice the space.

The Wharf Tower - look liky anything??

City Baths