Caves Trek & Good Vibrations

Hi All,

It's been a good start to the year for us - it's now the end of Feb and we've both finished work and are just wrapping things up for the big trip and looking forward to Charl's parents arriving next week.

(Rock wallaby by the side of the track on our trip)

Towards the end of January we thought we'd give our car and our camping gear a test run so headed down to Mittagong way to do a well known 4x4 trek running between two sets of caves - the wombeyan and the Jenolan. This was supposed to be a bit of a test for us so Charl picked a trek out the book that was of moderate difficulty and we spent one of the nights "bushcamping" (i.e. in the bush - no nice hot showers & kitchen blocks etc..)

Our new camping set-up. Nissan Patrol now comes with homemade awning for sun and rain protection. We're getting pretty handy with this stuff now

Waterfall within the blue mountains national park

It's a great area - highly recommmend visiting it for anyone coming this way. Our route took us from the Southern Highlands into the Blue Mountains. The route into Wombeyan is a two drive down a single lane track which hugs the cliff face, blind corners aplenty. Few heart stopping moments but fantastic scenery.

Grey Kangaroos' on the first site

Our first stop was great - there were heaps of grey kangaroos on site and we also saw a red bellied blacksnake (venomous apparantly - Australia has more venomous than non-venomous snakes & is the only place in the world with this dubious honour)

Charl making use of our shower tent - "shower tent" you say, "surely they're turning into camping geeks" (you'd probably be right

The second day we got into the proper 4x4 tracks. We now know when the book says things like "steep rocky slopes where careful wheel placement is required to avoid damaging the undercarrage" and "the entry and exits to this creek crossing are steep, rutted and often washed out" that this actually means the track is really quite difficult and "moderate" is just another classic australian understatement. We now also know thanks to Charl's first river crossing if we go through rivers higher than the doors then substantial amounts of water come into the passenger side of the car.

one of the various creeks to cross

the aforementioned "steep rutted" creek entrance (worse than it looks)

Kanangra Walls - the best Blue Mountains viewpoint

Anway was a top weekend and other than our front number plate which disappeared somewhere along the way the were no real casualties. The highlight of February was undoubtedly the Good Vibrations festival. 40 thousand people turned up with Cypress Hill and Kanye West headlining. It wasn't quite homelands as it finishes early at ten but it was a long day nonetheless. We finished the day watching the excellent High Contrast along with a couple of thousand of the more discerning australian crowds, best set I've seen in ages - loved the cheeky drop in of their own remix of "goldigga" whilst Kanye was playing it outside.

some random climbing the tent -they're always one eh?

We've also turned into masters of accomodation hopping on gumtree - if you're ever visiting somewhere and want something a normal rent level for a couple of weeks look it up -there's loads of people advertising their pads to cover their rent whilst they're away. We got this one place for three weeks that was right on Manly Beach - couldn't be any closer. It was amazing, could've lived there forever. Didn't even have to switch the internet on the check the surf in the morning - just rolled over and lifted the blind up!

Sunset over Manly from our flat

Our next leg now see's us heading down to Melborne with Charl's folks in tow. Should be amazing. Work is over and the adventure begins so the blog should get a bit more exciting again

Cheers

Si & Charl

The Queen Vic in at circular quay - Big old boat.

2008!

Christmas in the sun and the start of a new year

A belated happy new year, for the first time in my life I’ve actually felt a detox was necessary and have been doing a yoga course at 6am for the last week to try and cleanse myself a bit. Slightly shattered, and probably slightly mad for partaking but my post-Raleigh muscles are drooping and the wine and chocolate over Christmas did me no favours. That said we had a great break over Christmas with Simon’s family.

(Me, Charl my mum & bro in the classic opera house shot)

My Family & I oustide the "summer bay surflifesaving club" palm beach

Holiday house in Anna Bay, Port Stephens

View from our terrace - not your standard xmas viewing!

Camel rides on stockton beach - a few minutes walk from the house

A couple of the amazing sunsets we saw at Anna Bay

Vitsing Port Stephens (a couple of hours north of Sydney) and the Blue Mountains – really seriously stunning – particularly away from the crowds of SE Asian tour groups. We used the opportunity to take the motor out into the 35k of sand dunes called stockton beach and hone our off road driving skills a bit. Me by embedding it in a sand dune on Stockton Dunes – embarrassingly for Simon in the one place along the beach that people actually stop, park and picnic. Sorry. Unfortunately it was only after a kind guy had pulled us out – we did have our own snatch strap! (that is a technical term by the way) – that we realised what a great photo opportunity it would have been. Nevermind. After suffering much berating from the obviously better skilled driver in our relationship I spent the following day hanging around on the beach while Simon took Pip on a drive down the beach – I mentioned to Si that maybe he needed to drop his tyre pressures a bit more if he was going off on the dunes and then off they went. And waited I did. A few hours later they returned after Simon had got the truck stuck up a massive sand dune away from everybody, for some reason doing a 3 point turn. I was quietly pleased when he mentioned that maybe he should have dropped the tyre pressures a bit more.

Charl posing (before she got it stuck)

taking a break by the wreck of the Sygna

Driving up big sand dunes = lots & lots of fun

Unless you get stuck and can't get out - like this unlucky fella!

And when you get bored of driving there's always dune boarding on your bodyboard!

Another highlight of the port stephens trip was a boat trip to Broughton Island. We had a beatiful sunny day, dolphins in the bow waves of the boat, snorkelled with huge manta rays. It was all going wonderfully until the skipper wrapped his mooring rope around his prop on the way out and we had to be bailed out by a local fisherman with a scuba tank and a hacksaw

The dolphins in the bowwave

Dad & Pip contemplating the ocean on Broughton Island

The surf beach side of port Stephens

The Interior Bay of Port Stephens

In the Blue Mountains we did some great walks and came back for NYE in Sydney. We didn’t brave the city centre but had a great meal with family and friends and had the surreal experience of seeing the tops of the city fireworks in the distance across the headland and the ‘live on tv’ version in the restaurant delayed by about 2 seconds.

View from our cottage balcony - it's true honest

feeding the rosella's on our terrace

typical blue mountains viewpoint

Then back to work (4 weeks and counting)

We’ve had our own flat in the centre of Manly for January which we’ve enjoyed despite the cockroach infestation and have had a pretty quiet month, the highlight being our trip to Canberra in the rain. Canberra is the most incredibly, exciting city you’ll ever visit and I really recommend a trip. Okay, that’s not quite the truth. We visited some guys form the expedition who are living there and it was great to see them, and I really wanted to prove everybody wrong and decide that Canberra was indeed an interesting place and not-deserving of its reputation of being slightly dull. Well, I’m afraid it was. I can see what attracts some people there but not for me I’m afraid. We did see a brilliant exhibition of Aboriginal Art though and the National Museum was really worth a wander around.

Our mates Derek & Hazel & a grey, rainy Canberra

This weekend is more camping (we’re practicing for the trip) and another move of flat, wishing everyone well, family and friends stay in our hearts and minds all the time

Si: 2007 was a ridiculous year which included camping in hammocks in the jungle, driving fully kitted Landy's through the middle of some of the worlds oldest rainforest, learning how to use machete's, building bridges and water feeds, bathing elephants, diving with sharks, rockclimbing, surfing, snowboarding, jumping out of planes, driving in Sandunes and growing a handlebar mustache.

In terms of an interesting blog we'll do our utmost to keep up to standard - we're about to head off on a 5 month camping adventure driving through some of Australia's most remote country, where people have corks dangling from their hats and the blokes look like members of ZZ Top who have been on a lifetime diet of huge red meat steaks, where you can't go near the rivers cos of the crocks & the seas cos of the jellies and sharks. All in all should have some interesting photo's to post.

A belated happy new year to all back home (if anyone's still reading this by now)