Melbourne to Byron Bay

Here we go again then, the blogs have started, been a while since I left I know that but haven’t had good enough internet to do this with.

Judith and me landed in Melbourne late on the Sunday night and stayed with Liz, two days later Sophie arrived. That caused a bit of hassle bless her as she sent her flight details to my English number which I didn’t have any more, causing us to have to phone around friends back home in a panic trying to figure out what time she would be getting here. Eventually Josh managed to get the details from her sister and we made it to the airport, but the panic wasn’t over yet as her flight never arrived. One main problem is that because of the time of night there weren’t many staff around that could help us, finally we managed to find out that her flight had been delayed by 3 hours. When we caught sight of her through the gates, it was the best feeling ever as by this time it was about 2 in the morning and all we wanted to do was sleep. But we got her home and away we went.

Whilst we were in Melbourne Judith, Liz and I went on the neighbours’ tour, so worth it if you are a fan, was so strange to see the street and we meet Eve AKA Sonya. Judith, Sophie and Me then carried on the Melbourne fun by going to St Kilda beach, the National Museum, Geelong, they had a White Night festival whilst we were there as well, went to Karaoke, Melbourne Zoo, War memorial, and we toured the city on the City Tram and the City bus so we think we managed to see a lot of the city that most people wouldn’t end up seeing, went to the science and technology section in Federation Square.

After Melbourne we went to stay with a couple of my friends Graham and Lee and one of their friends Louise up in Ballarat, for the weekend, was really good to catch up with them all. We didn’t really do much whilst there apart from go Koala spotting up a small mountain and scaring Judith by going up a lookout tower whilst there.

Then it was time to hit the Great Ocean Road, with a quick stop off at Mt Eccles National Park, where we were surrounded by Kangaroos, Koalas and Possums all night, we even got to have a play in a Police car. The Great Ocean Road was really good, we spent two days driving  along it, starting off by stopping off at all the viewpoints but after about 6 stops we realised we could start missing out on a few of them, but we made sure we stopped at the 12 Apostles. When we got to Apollo bay we were going to go for a swim but decided the sea was way too cold and instead had fish and chips and a beer!!

Our next stop was Canberra, but unfortunately we didn’t get much time here as Corinne and Gerry (my bosses last year and this year) phoned and asked if we wanted to house sit for them, but they needed us up at Byron Bay area within a week, it was originally going to be about 2 weeks maybe a bit more. But we agreed to do it so we had one afternoon in Canberra which we spent at the Captain Cook water fountain and the Parliament house, considering none of us are the political sort it turned out to be a little bit boring so we made our way to the campsite we would be staying for the night. It appeared to be a very nice camp ground, a showground that was only used on week a year and the rest of the year it was a campsite, we woke up in the morning to a misty scene, which was really good for photos, but then things turned rubbish as Judith heard the caretakers wife bitching about us to some other campers, say how we must think it was hot as we were sat out in the sun at 9 in the morning, and how we have all our stuff everywhere (we had a tent, a car and three chairs so don’t know how she figured that one out!!) then she came over to us and started saying it all to our face. I have never felt so unwelcomed at a camp ground in my life, so we quickly packed up “all our stuff” and high-tailed it out of there!

After a few hours of driving we got to SYDNEY, now that was a bit of a pain to get into as we paid for one toll road and we really didn’t want to pay for another one so I decided to turn down a side road and go into the city through all the back roads. When you don’t actually have a point to head towards, other than the city centre it is actually really hard to find anywhere, eventually we found a hostel and just about managed to get two nights stay, but we had to find somewhere else to park the car as they only had six spaces, first car park we went into was going to cost us $280 for two nights so we moved on from that one and found another one still expensive but a lot better at a price of $120 for two nights. One the first night there we went out with the guy who was sharing our room, and we didn’t get back in until 4.30 in the morning! The next day was our only full day in Sydney, so we paid for the city tour bus as we thought this would be the quickest way to get around and see the sights. We managed to cram in a lot considering we didn’t start until 1ish. Saw the Oprah House and the Harbour Bridge, got the classic photos and moved on to Bondi Beach.

Next day we had a short trip through the Blue Mountains, and it’s true, the eucalyptus trees do give off a blue haze. It was a really pretty drive with lovely views, we went down a couple of look outs on the way, including one that (again) pushed Matt to the limits but he got us there, even if it did turn out to be a bit of a waste of time as the water fall we went down there for was another 2 hour walk away and none of us were prepared to do a two hour walk. We carried on through the mountains and did a loop to the other side where we found a national park to camp for the night. Over the next couple of days we were just driving up the Pacific Highway towards Byron Bay.