Busy busy busy....

Lake StClaire
Bondi to Cogee (Bondi)
Palm beach
Submarine beach. Myall lakes
Hi All.

Had a busy few weeks, as our time in Sydney draws to an end. We have basically being trying to do all the things we hadn’t yet got round to, and been quite successful!

Firstly, the Bondi to Coogee walk - a 5km walk taking in some great beaches. See the Photo’s, some really good beaches and coastline.

Secondly, barren Joey lighthouse walk at Palm beach (where Home and Away is based for all you Oz soap fans!) Again a great walk, we took the old smugglers path up, quite steep and narrow but well worth it for the views. Again see photos.

Thirdly, the Myall Lakes, which are a collection of coastal lake about 200 clicks north of Sydney. (Forster and Tuncurry area for more specific location) Which - once we arrived - were stunning. We were diverted when we set off on Monday due to a large bush fire in the Kur-ing-gai chase national park which borders North Sydney, and ended up in the McQuarie arms in Windsor again! Not a place we planned on visiting quite so soon again, but a welcome break. In the end we didn’t make it to the lakes that evening, instead we ended up at - what turned out to be - a wicked little site on the shores of Lake StClaire, just north of Singleton (A coal mining town (?) inland near the Hunter Valley).. What a gem, really quiet, huge! And Sea eagles circling around! Awesome.. On Tuesday we made it to the lakes, and it was well worth the extra hassle! Huge coastal sand bank locked lakes and white beaches. We visited a viewing plateau 250m above sea level called Whoota Whoota. A little hazy but still fantastic panoramic views. In the eve we stayed at a remote little site called Yagon. A coastal site right behind the beach sand dunes, really nice and again quiet! The next day the rain set in so we decided to sun chase back to Sydney and as there wasn’t any all the way we ended up back in the northern beaches!

Finally Australia day yesterday was fun, walked for miles around central Sydney and soaked up the atmos. Lots of fun and some tasty beer at the Lord Nelson brewery in the Rocks to end the day.

As we said earlier our last week in Sydney is upon us before heading off to do some Fruit picking before Melbourne, and what can we say other than a MASSIVE THANKS to Soph Rich and baby Joel for the use of their rather awesome place in Collaroy. It’s been really nice staying here before heading off on the road. We can’t thank you enough . And also again to Helen and Al. THANKS….



Peace out all

XxJ&J

The mighty D!!!

Tenacious D. Live at the Hordern Pavillion 16th Jan 2006!!! ROCK!!!!

The second clip contains some vile language. Do no play if you are easily offended....

The Blue Mountains.

The Cathedral
The Three Sisters

Hi All !

Last week saw us finally make it to the Blue Mountains ! And what a trip it was too.

We set off on Monday afternoon, destination Blackheath, the national park centre to be exact. Our plan was to make it to the Janolan caves area by evening, but as we only arrived in Blackheath at 4.30pm and there would have been another one and a half hour drive, we decided to stay nearby. In the Megalong valley to be exact. We stayed at a free campsite which was more like a rest area. A few benches and a beautifull pit toilet! Mmmm…. In the morning we visited an historic burial ground briefly nearby then set off to the Janolan caves. ( we visited a view point, some of the photos from here show the extent of the recent bush fire!)

The Janolan caves were amazing. The drive to them was fantastic, a windey mountain road which dropped in to the valley with some truly spectacular views! On arrival the janolan coach house building greets you – a real alpine resort look to it.

We did a tour of the supposed extreme caves, (which weren’t very extreme) known as the lucas caves, and my word were they spectacular (see photos) the high point being the cathedral, where they actually host concerts, the acoustics were amazing, and the cave was enhanced by ingeious lighting. The ticket for this tour also included a self guided tour around the nettle cave and the Devils Coach House.

In the evening we headed to a campsite in the Kanangra Boyd national park nearby. This was the true gem of all the sites. A 20km dirt track led to it, and when we arrived we had the whole site to ourselves, with the exception of a couple of nutters from the Netherland, who were cycling around Australia! Mad! But very cool, and gave us two books they had finished to lighten their loads a little.. We lit a fire in a hut and cooked dinner. Our evening was cut short by a monster spider! Turns out it was a Huntsman, not deadly and quite timid, but we didn’t know that at the time and didn’t want to risk it so returned to the van.

In the morning we drove 7km further down the dirt track to do a short walk, firstly to see the Kanangra walls – incredible sandstone cliffs 140m high drop in to forest covered valleys! Then to the Kananga falls. A short steep walk to a 40ft fall and pool than a scramble down to the point it falls 140m in to the valley! Awesome, really remote and so stunning!!!

We then went to see the three sisters, and the Wentworth falls, both spectacular but tourist-tastic, so we snapped them left and spent our final night at a busy little site called Ingra way, the plus to this place was a really nice waterfall fed lake, so our first wash for a few days!!!!! The next morning we set off back to Sydney via Windsor!! To visit the oldest pub in australia – The Macquarie Arms!!! Built in 1815…. And that was the Blue Mountain… (Little fact:- Called the blue mountains due to the blue hue created by the evaporated menthol from the gum trees!)

Xxj&j

32 degrees + VW + Harbour bridge + Mylo = :)

A little mobile phone test here!!! Done on our return from the blue mountains. Pics and a post to follow. We had an amazing time!!

x

The Vee Dub after shots!!!

BEFORE!

AFTER!!!!!!

Ladies and Gents! The moment you have all been waiting for has finally arrived!! The All new Vee Dub has had it's photo shoot and is here for all to see!!! Exciting huh.....

I am going to be a nerd and list all the work done purely for future reference, you dont have to read it just skip to the "Our Photos" link and check out the "after shots" May I suggest a quick glance at the before shots just to refresh your memories.

Engine......
*Oil and filter change.
*Gearbox oil change.
*new spark plugs.
*New engine bay seal.
*Carbs adjusted.
*Dual battery conversion.
*Isolator (dual charge) fitted.

Interior......
*Internal tray cleaned and rust treated.
*Fully re-upholstered seat/bed.
*Curtains fitted.
*rear window blind fitted.
*Vanetian side window blinds fitted.
*new staring wheel/gear nob fitted.
*fully co-ordinated panels.
*new door handles.
*new driver side window mechanism fitted!!
*new floor mats fitted throughout.
*surfaces painted.
*fuse box mounted.
*Professional window tints.

Exterior.....
*all rust treated properly and filled.
*upper body re-spray white.
*lower body re-spray VW flipper blue.
*New tyres all round.
*bumpers re-sprayed.
*bull bar re-sprayed.
*pop top sealed.
*cabin roop treated and sealed.

Videos!?!

Happy New Year!

Hello everyone, hope you all had a lovely Christmas and fab New Year celebrations.

Again, bit of a delay since the last blog so lots of news to catch-up on……………

In the last week we have covered over 2100 km………..the van is doing us proud, James has done loads of work on it so it looks and runs about 100 times better than when we bought it!!! We set off from Sydney on Friday 22^nd December at 12.30 am driving through the night to Melbourne, in total it was about 12 hours driving time, but we had quite a few rest stops, so we arrived in Melbourne about 5pm on the Saturday. We took the Hume Highway, not a particularly exciting drive, but it’s quicker than the coastal route. We spent Christmas in Melbourne at Richard and Jill’s, along with Mike, Sarah and Wozza, had a totally great time, thanks guys. In true Aussie style we had a super deluxe BBQ on Christmas day, but there wasn’t much sunshine to go with it, in fact it rained!!!!! Didn’t matter though, we were too full to care! On Christmas Eve we had taken a trip to the South Melbourne Market and bought A LOT of food, so Christmas day scran involved oysters, king prawns, red snapper, blue-eyed cod, kangaroo, numerous salads, a rather impressive cheese plate and tiramisu (we also had our fair share of beer and wine too!). YUM.

Boxing day took us to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) (along with 100,000 other people!) to see the first day of the fourth Ashes test match, again the weather wasn’t great, but it was worth it to sample the atmosphere and see Shane Warne score his 700^th wicket, Flintoff and Pieterson bat, and the barmy army, who are truly barmy indeed.

Then on the 27^th we set off to meet Nicole and Tali, who also have a camper van (Toyota Hiace for those of you in the know) so we could travel in convoy up the south coast back to Sydney stopping at a few campsites on the way. Had an awesome time and it is a gorgeous route, really picturesque with some cute little seaside towns. Definitely going to do that route again as there are so many things to see! Our first stop was in Womboyn, to get to the campsite we had to drive down a track avoiding kangaroos! Then we spent two nights at a beautiful campsite on Pebbly Beach, which is not far from a popular holiday town called Bateman’s Bay (Its good enough for Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban anyway, we shopped alongside them in the supermarket there!!!). Pebbly beach has kangaroos, various parrots and possums galore, amazing. Again the weather wasn’t great, but it saved the rain for nighttime and we still managed to go for walks and swim in the sea.

So it was back to Sydney for New Year’s Eve fireworks. They were brilliant, incredible to watch, and the main show lasted for nearly 20 mins, there was also an earlier family show at 9pm, which last for about 10 mins. I read somewhere that 3000 kg of explosives were launched into the sky!!!! We watched them from a park on Cremorne Point which overlooks the Sydney harbour. People start pitching their picnic places from early in the morning in order to get a good spot to view the show, crazy, but there were some very organized people with tents, gazebos, BBQs….etc!! We got there late afternoon, but managed to find a place to sit and picnic, even though it was already packed. Despite it being very busy, there was a really great atmosphere, everyone was having fun, some aided by quite a lot of alcoholic beverages!!!!!

The two weeks previous to Christmas were spent in Sydney. We have now moved back to Collaroy for some beach side living and are house sitting for Soph, Richard and Joel until the end of January while they are in the UK for 7 weeks attending to the small matter of getting married. Hope all the preparations are going well guys. GOOD LUCK. Massive thanks again to Helen and Al for letting us stay in Cremorne with them for 4 weeks, very much appreciated, you stars.

Also, I have been working since mid-December. I have a couple of part-time jobs, one working in a coffee shop in Cremorne in the mornings (6.30 am start, yikes, but getting up early seems to be easier here!), and the other working in a cool restaurant on the shores of Lake Narrabeen, about 10 mins walk from here. So I was quite busy before Christmas earning some spends. James had an interview at a car place called SupaCheap Auto ( a result of going in there lots to buy stuff for the van!), so he’ll hopefully be working there part-time throughout January.

So that’s the update for now, more soon…………..check out the new photos under the “our photos” link.

Hope everyone is well, and all the best for 2007, hope it’s a great year.

Take care,

Jude and James

xxxx