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A journal of our adventures

Archive for October, 2011

Day 110 – Home !

Oct 26

Posted by Anthony in Big Lap 2011, Caravanning | 4 Comments

And … we’re baaaaccckkk!

The drive wasn’t too bad really.  A bit rainy through the twistery, hilliness that exists up until Nowa Nowa, but after that the sun came out a bit and the wind died down.

We made good time and were at Bruthen for lunch and home by 4:30pm.  The kids initially thought that we were free camping tonight … and I guess we kind of are 😉  But they twigged around Sale that the destination was the big HOME for tonight and they were pretty excited.  We finally managed to finish listening to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy audio book that we’d been listening to, one chapter at a time each day.  Around Pakenham they still had no idea where we were and thought that it would be ‘hours’ before we were home and thus happily got stuck into the last movie.

It wasn’t until we were going through Baxter that Hannah said “Hey!, I recognize this place!” … and the jig was up!

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Day 109 – Pambula (Day 2)

Oct 25

Posted by Anthony in Big Lap 2011, Caravanning | Comments off

The park at Pambula is a great one.  Plenty for the kids to do, especially over summer, as it’s right on the beach.  Unfortunately, today it isn’t summer and it’s frightfully cold and rainy.  We’ve even had to unpack our winter woolies that have been travelling Australia on the roof of the car.  The van heater even got a shock as it was asked to do something for the first time in about 3 months.

I’d planned on going for a morning walk either up Mt. Imlay or one of the many great parks around the area, but the weather soon put an end to that idea!  I braved it long enough to grab a geocache or two, but my mind was sitting in a cozy pub around a nice hot fire …

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Day 108 – Pambula

Oct 24

Posted by Anthony in Big Lap 2011, Caravanning | Comments off

Up and out of the smallest site we’ve had on the trip by 8am and still with plenty to do.  We’re hoping to get to Twofold Bay, South of Merimbula, today … about 250km away.  Not too far, but there’s the Great Dividing Range in the way making for some slow going.

That was all for much later in the day though, we still had a full day planned for Canberra.  No-one can say we’re not getting value out of our time on this trip, that’s for sure!

First stop was Questacon.  This is a bit like scienceworks in Melbourne.  Both are quite similar, but Questacon seems to have a lot more interactive exhibits.

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Day 107 – Canberra (Day 2)

Oct 23

Posted by Anthony in Big Lap 2011, Caravanning | Comments off

A busy day in Canberra today and not just for us.  The Queen was in town and even though it was a Sunday, sleepy Canberra was abuzz.

The busy day for us included Cockington Gardens, a cruise past some of the embassies, a tour of Parliament House, a look at the old one too, the Carillon, lunch at La Porchetta, checked out the view from the Telstra Tower on Black Mountain and finally the War Museum.  Oh and we bumped into the Queen along the way too.

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Day 106 – Canberra

Oct 22

Posted by Anthony in Big Lap 2011, Caravanning | Comments off

Another driving day today.  Quite a workout for the vehicle it was too.  Up hill and down dale all day.

We’ve climbed up as high as 800m today and been up/down a few 200m hills too.  Plenty of winding roads to keep me on my toes.

We finally got to cross Sea Cliff Bridge.  I’ve been wanting to do that for years. You know … build a bridge … get over it.

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Day 105 – Patonga Beach

Oct 21

Posted by Anthony in Big Lap 2011, Caravanning | Comments off

Just a driving day today.  We didn’t have much of a plan … in fact we hadn’t actually done our research at all.

All I knew was that we’d be on Sydney’s outskirts around 5pm on a Friday night and had no plans on driving through it then.  So we had to stop somewhere North of there for the night.  Probably Gosford…

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Day 104 – Coffs Harbour (Day 2)

Oct 20

Posted by Anthony in Big Lap 2011, Caravanning | Comments off

Today we had the Pet Porpoise Pool planned and the kids had a special surprise in store there.

The Pet Porpoise Pool is easily the best animal interaction experience that we’ve found in Australia.  Within about a minute of walking through the front door the kids sealed a kiss.

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Day 103 – Coffs Harbour

Oct 19

Posted by Anthony in Big Lap 2011, Caravanning | Comments off

The day has come to leave the Gold Coast.  We’d well and truly settled in at Tweed Heads.

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Day 102 – Tweed Heads (Day 6)

Oct 18

Posted by Anthony in Big Lap 2011, Caravanning | Comments off

After yesterdays bout of rainyness, the Gold Coast turned on a ripper for us today … so we went to Seaworld.

We just couldn’t get our timing right today though and managed to arrive late to get off to a good start.

Missed the first dolphin show and the second one too.  With all the bustling around I managed to throw my back out.  We were definitely on a roll!!  The rollercoasters seemed to be perpetually either not going or being tested constantly. *sigh* … but we still got to see most everything and go on everything … eventually.

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Day 101 – Tweed Heads (Day 5)

Oct 17

Posted by Anthony in Big Lap 2011, Caravanning | 1 Comment

A bit of a quiet day today really.  Eventually, we went in to Surfers to try and find Blake a meter maid … unsuccessfully.  I think that perhaps they should remain mythical.

In any case we had a look around in there for awhile.  Played some games at Timezone.  We all had Parma’s for lunch.

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