Hey everyone!

We have spent the last few weeks travelling down from Byron to Sydney, our plan had been to spend our time enjoying the beaches, getting sun tans and relaxing, lets just say we've only really seen cloud and believe it or not rain with the odd day of sunshine thrown in just to tease us! Kind of messed up our plans.

Following Byron was Coffs Harbour, nice town, we saw whales of the headland which was cool, but we didn't do much else there wondered round a lot, we moved on down to Nambucca Heads and hurray the sun came out for two days, we loved it here, we put a picture up on photo album, the sea and the sand where so gorgeous, the day we arrived there was a big Ford car event, where ford GT lovers had brought there cars to show off, there was a street filled with 100s of the cars, needless to say Owen loved it. We then went down to the sea, it was so pretty and clear and there were some dolphins swimming right next to the break wall, which was brilliant seeing them so close.  There is a massive breakwall, which is painted by travellers and locals, with all sorts of messages, we spent along time looking for the one Jenny had painted 4 years ago and eventually found it! We had planned to do ours, but the day we wanted to do it was raining and didn't stop and we had to move on, shame coz we'd been looking forward to this.

Port macquarie same story as coffs harbour, we kind of killed time unfortunately because of the weather, we planned to stay a night but then Owen did a question and answer with a journalist and the next day appeared with photo in the local paper! so we had to stay another night just to get a copy of the paper!

 By now we had accepted that the weather is rubbish and not going to improve so we decide to drive inland to the Hunter Valley wine region and go round all the Vineyards wine tasting, we had so much fun!! We tried so many wines and champagne and also olives and cheeses, we went on a tour to see how the wine is made, this was cool, we spent a couple of days here, free drink why not!

Next stop Port Stephens, this place was really nice, pure white sand and clear water, it is also home to the largest moving sand dunes in the Southern Hemisphere, so we went sandboarding, this is so so fun, you sit on little boards like a skate board with no wheels and just go flying down the dunes! Another day we went horse riding over the dunes, this was crazy, Owens ridden a horse twice and we were just set loose and fully galloped over the dunes. But was great and we both enjoyed it. we also got a day on the beach in the sun here too!!

We then drove inland to the Blue Mountains spectacular national park, we saw the 3 sisters rock formation and went on a walk down to a waterfall, it was down a thousand steps, luckily to get back up, there was a railway, but it was the steepest incline railway in the world, and oh my god was it steep! it took us 90 secs to get back to the top of the mountain that it took us an hour to get down. The second day there we went on a 4 hour Grand Canyon walk, this was really amazing and it was more like bush walking, no proper path you climbed over rocks and rivers, was easy going down to the canyon but we were fully spent by the time we got back to the top.

We then drove to the Northern beaches of Sydney, this is where Home and Away is filmed and I  got excited about being on Summer Bay beach (which is actually Palm beach), and having a photo outside the surf club...anyway! It was actually a gorgeous beach and there was an ocean pool that gets filled by the sea so people can swim safely, theres lots of sharks around here. We chilled out here for a few days, on one day we went to a pub that has the biggest pub garden in Australia, we spent the day there had a great meal and lots of wine which after visiting the Hunter Valley we now want to drink all the time!! Unfortunately while here we picked up two parking tickets oops, parking in a bus stop we understand even though there were no road markings, but  for parallel parking against the direction of traffic?! What a stupid rule.

Well yesterday was very sad for us we had to give our campervan back to Britz, it's been our home for two months and we didn't want to give it back coz that means it's nearly time to fly back to england :( We are now staying in a scabby hostel in dorm rooms, but it was cheap and the point was to save money - or so we keep having to remind ourselves. Anyway for the next 10 days we explore Sydney but we'll write about that next time.

Hope you are all ok.

Love Sarah and Owen xx