January 29: Heading home

Today was the end of our road trip.  We spent our last night in a village called Rylstone sharing the campsite with a couple of car loads of bogans who were visiting a hot-rod show in the next village!
We managed to get a pretty decent night sleep, and before heading back we stocked up on stone fruit from the blue mountains and a big fat lemon meringue pie from Foxwood Farm.  Although it was tough at first we really enjoyed our couple of nights in our little van.  We will definitely do it again but maybe next time we'll try to make sure that we're going to have good weather!

January 28 Part 2: Dubbo to Mudgee

January 28 Part 1: Back to the Zoo

Back to the Zoo this morning to finish our adventure.  Today we saw tigers, zebras and got up close to a couple of huge giraffes.  We really enjoyed the zoo and would probably go back if it wasn't so far away. After seeing all the amazing animals the ones that got Daisy the most animated.....were the Otters!

January 27 Part 2: Western Plains Zoo

When we arrived at the zoo we found out that we could buy a ticket which allowed us entry over two consecutive days, which meant that we could take our time looking around.  We spent 3 hours wandering around the park and saw everything from meerkats to rhinoceros and even found a friendly elephant who gave Gem & Daisy a lift home.

January 27 Part 1: Orange to Dubbo

The weather was a bit better today.  We left Orange and headed North on the Tourist road towards the Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo.  The scenery was amazing, and made even more interesting by the sculptures which lined the road for about 100km.  They were all built from scrap and seemed to have some connection to cycling.  We were almost taken out by a massive Kangaroo this morning, but the cameras weren't quick enough to catch it so you'll just have to believe us!

January 26: Lithgow to Orange

After drying out this morning we left our first campsite and headed west to Bathhurst, where we thought we could join in the Australia Day celebrations.  Unfortunately everything had been cancelled due to the rain, so after a quick look around we jumped back in the van and drove around the Bathhurst race circuit!  Reckon were probably the only family who's ever driven around it in a camper-van!  We ended up in Orange this evening and had a barbecue in our special hats to celebrate.

January 25: Road trip

Day 1 of our Australia day weekend road trip.  We picked up a camper-van in Sydney and drove off through the Blue Mountains to Lithgow for our first stop.  It rained all day & all night so we couldn't do much outdoors, and spent the evening watching DVD's and trying to work out how to assemble the various beds.  Nick slept up in the roof with about 4inches between his nose & the ceiling and Gem & Daisy slept downstairs on half the bed.  Lets just say it was cosy!

January 20: Meet the neighbours part 2

This Possum has been our neighbour for the last couple of months.  He enjoys staring at us from the fence and running over the roof in the middle of the night!

January 16: Happy Birthday Aunty Sarah!

January 13: 2 going-on 12

We took these photos today as we were walking down in Manly for a coffee.  We're not sure what it is but Daisy looks a lot older than 2 1/2!  She's growing up quickly!

January 08: Head over heals

January 06: Vaucluse House

Today we visited Vaucluse House, one of the Sydney properties belonging to the Historic Houses Trust.  Built in the early 1800's the owner was one of the early statsemen of the new colony, but didn't fit into regular society and as a result spent much of his time developing the house over a 50 year period in a variety of architectural styles.  Although some people dislike the higgledy-piggledy nature of the house we really enjoyed exploring and imagining what life would have been like 150 years ago.  Daisy especially enjoyed the 'historic' toys on the lawn!

January 04: Breakfast with the Morgans

This morning we met the Morgans at Shellie for a breakfast Barbie.  The weather had taken a turn for the worse again but at least Rhys, Daisy & Erin are enjoying the snags!

January 03: Katoomba

Today we drove up to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains.  The first photo shows the famous three sisters taken from Echo point.  The view across the blue mountain range was spectacular, but it was far too hot to hang around in the open.  We took the cable car down to the floor of the valley to explore the old mine workings,  it was much cooler at the bottom and Daisy could run around on the boardwalk.
We called into the aboriginal cultural centre afterwards and watched a demonstration of traditional dance.  Daisy had to try out a didgeredoo. She didn't get much of a sound of it - but not for lack of blowing, shouting and making animal sounds!