Australia Zoo - Sleepy Koala

Australia Zoo - Kangaroo scratching his chest!!

Australia Zoo - Em feeding the elephants

Australia Zoo - Jumping with Steve

Noosa night scene

Rainbow beach - Tim & Em

Tin Can Bay - Tim feeding the dolphins

We were then up early again the next day (anyone see a trend here - we are supposed to be on holiday!) and headed off to Fraser Island. We caught the barge across and were then greeted by a 4 wheel drive 52 seater coach! This was to be our carriage for the day. We then did a bit of an island tour, went on a walk through the rainforest and then stopped at Lake Mckenzie for a swim

Lake McKenzie, Fraser Island - Tim & Em

After the lake we then had lunch, which was very nice, and then headed up 75 mile beach, in the coach! It seemed slightly wrong that there were 75 miles of beautiful beach and you could not go in the sea (due to currents, jellyfish, sharks etc) and also the beach is used as a highway for buses, 4 x 4's and also as a landing strip for planes. There was a shipwreck on the beach which was pretty impressive, although we had to stay 3 metres away.To finish off the day, we saw a couple of dingo's on the way home!

Fraser Island, 75 mile beach - ship wreck

Fraser Island, 75 mile beach - Dingo

Thanks to Bill & Bev for putting us up, a proper bed was a luxury!! We had to be up early yet again the following day because of the long drive ahead of us.

written by  Tim and Em on February 27, 2010 from Fraser Island, Australia
from the travel blog: Round half the world!
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Its been a hectic week which has seen as pick up our campervan and drive from Sydney to Noosa. Selected highlights as follows:

We picked up our van on Monday 16th, she is a real beauty based on a VW LT35 van - she has air con, a toilet and a shower, time will tell if we love or loath the campervan lifestyle! After provisioning in the local supermarket, we headed out of Sydney - we drove over the harbour bridge - how cool is that!!

We were picked up at the campsite at 930 by the "wine rover", a rotund Aussie called Brian who was extremely knowledgeable about the area, history, wine and the vineyards. In all, we visited 5 vineyards, tasted 53 different ones and amazingly remained fairly sober!!

It felt very strange to be drinking wine at 10am in the morning but we managed! On our budget, we couldn't afford to buy any of the wine although we were very tempted. Think we both learned a little bit more about wine appreciation - berry overtones and all that stuff. There was also cheese and chocolate - heaven!

Due to the alcohol intake, we stayed a further night in Cessnock but set off the following day heading for a brief overnight stay at Port Macquerie. This was more to break up the drive than anything else. We have started to get very good at cooking on the barbeque - each campsite has a camp kitchen which included several barbeques (and Fahitas!!). Pretty much all waking hours are spent outside the van. Still very hot here and the initial sunburn is fading.

We then drove to Darlington Beach, decided to stay here on the recommendation of the folks we met from Padstow. Campsite was again a stone's throw from the beach. Again, a great campsite, each pitch was very roomy and lots of palm trees. Lots of wildlife around, had a close encouter with a kangaroo - was coming out of the toilet block late at night and there was a Roo just sitting there - very surreal! Went back to the van and said to Em, and so we both tip toed out and watched two kangeroos, one with a joey for about fifteen minutes which was very cool. A friendly possum also paid a visit~!

We then travelled on up the coast to Byron Bay, on the way we stopped at a small place called Angourie,

To start the morning, we had a hearty breakfast of steak, prawns and eggs (yes, thats right, breakfast!) First off we drove to Builli look out with has amazing views over the forrest to Woollengong. Then it as a short drive down into the valley to the beach, one minute we're looking at it from afar and the next minute we're on it!! The weather was really hot so our chief safety officer suggested just 30 minutes lazing on the beach.

Thirroule Beach

Three sisters

Michelle & Tim

Blue Mountains waterfall

We spent Friday lazing around Newtown, it has a very chilled out vibe and is quite bohemian. To be honest, we started to struggle as the temperature was above 35 degrees so after a spot of lunch we headed back to the flat to put the air conditioning onto max! Once Ian and Sam arrived back from work we freshened up and headed downtown to meet Michelle and Nat. We went to a couple of bars on the "rocks" in Sydney and ended up in a bar with live music (of sorts). It was a fairly quiet night (not!) - see picture and we got back around 2am Saturday morning.

Quiet night out!

Not to be outdone, we had yet another BBQ breakfast/brunch where I featured as the guest chef. Then we all headed out and wandered various parts of Sydney for the obligatory tourist photo's of Sydney opera house and harbour bridge - nothing prepares you for physically seeing such iconic structures.

Harbour bride backdrop

Harbour bridge at night

So onto Sunday. Sam drove us to Bronte beach, again amazing even though it was drizzling with rain. From there we walked around the cliffs to Bondi for a nice romantic valentine's walk in the sand.

Valentine's walk Bondi

Sadly Ian and Sam had to go back to work on Monday so we headed solo over to Manly. We chilled on the beach and watched the surfers and then headed to a bar for an iced coffee. Again, the scenery was stunning (sorry will keep using these sorts of words).

Manly wharf

Last supper Sydney!

written by  Tim and Em on February 17, 2010 from Sydney, Australia
from the travel blog: Round half the world!
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Departure Heathrow

By this time we were starting to feel a bit weary so decided to have a relaxing foot massage before heading back to the hotel for a siesta. In the evening we met up with some friends (Martigne and James it was great to see you!) for dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Central - check out a place called Bacar when you're in Hong Kong and be sure to order the tuna!

HK Tram