Dubbo and beyond

Well Dubbo... what can I say,  heaps to see, friendly people but 11 days is long enough.

After  booking to stay for 5 days we ended up there for double that. Due to the van problems again of it not winding down, and contacting the dealer in Melbourne ( who we found to be sooo incompetent he couldn't even send the part by express post like he guaranteed he did, but that is a whole blog in itself). We got the part and now it seems to be fixed, fingers crossed anyway. 

Looking on the bright side we did see lots of other parts of Dubbo that we weren't going to look at. I got offered a job in a news agency, found my future business ( you'll see in the photos), found a park named after me and also meet some very nice people.

Our sights included the goal and zoo of course, the muesum was a definite highlight with Aboriginal arts and we got  to meet the artist and it was all FREE( best way to travel).  The Japanese gardens were also cool with a talking toilet complete with a automatic paper dispenser.

For Mothers Day we travelled down to Wellington for a picnic, was pretty cold and I forgot to pack the bread for our sandwiches of lunch but hot chips did the job.

And we also went to the Observatory and got to see Saturn in the telescope. Did you know that the speed of light is 300000kms per second or that a light year is 9467000000000kms away ????

 "Now you do." 

We found an Aboriginal site with carvings in the rocks and my favourite find was a winery with the most fantastic Moscato . YUMMY

Alizah in her cloak

Levi in his cloak

a kangaroo skin cloak with the one of many designs burnt in

a huge possum skin blanket

the other side of the blanket. Lots of possums

Zara...looking the part at the goal

Alizah with Kaine sad for her

Levi thought it was fun

Japanese gardens

Love the colours of the trees

Automatic toilet paper dispenser ( hours of fun)

Grinding stone next to the Macquarie River

A cool dirt pile on a river bank

My Park :)

The other "Lady" Cutlers

YUMMMY!!

Wellington- Levi & the over grown wombat

Alizahs photo of Saturn and something else not sure which is which 

My new business

AT THE ZOO

Finally back on the road we stayed at a free park just outside of Orange and wake to -1degress.  It was defiantly chilly trying to roll up the bed covers with frozen hands.  We got an early start and headed into Bathurst for Breaky, Jamie wanted cereal in the park with cold milk but there was no way I was going to do that so the call of a Hungry Jack coffee for me and Hot Chocolates for everyone else was calling.  We also did a test lap of Mount Panorama took 10 mins due to the conditions and pulling the van and being stopped for the filming  of a new car, but we were happy with that.

We did a bit of driving around Bathurst but having the van on it really limits your parking spaces, but we did find a school that looked like Harry Potters castle ( according to Levi). In Levi's words "I would love to go to that school, I bet the library is right at the top".

So getting out of the cold we made our way to the Blue Mountains to see some very breath taking sites. One road lead us on a dirt road that we almost needed a kidney belt on to travel on but was defiantly worth the drive.  We saw a wind eroded cave which was quite spectacular and also an amazing view from the top of a very large rock.  Unfortunately the fence that surrounded the edge of the cliff was extremely rusty and just waiting for the kids to lean on it to fall hundreds of metres to their death, so I was feeling a little ill and had to drag them back to the car of the trip to Sydney.



Bit chilly in Bathurst

Penny the racing car

A school Levi would like to attend

Wind eroded cave

And again, this really was huge and all made by the wind

Cool rock

Beautiful views

The dodgee fence place, rather high up

checking the view

My boys in a cave

Penny Prado in the Blue Mountains

The Three Sisters

Well we arrived at our caravan park (Lane Cove Tourist Park) about 5pm. So we only had a little bit of time before the sun went down to set up, but we are getting pretty good and a lot quicker too.

So my tip of anyone wanting to come to Sydney is this caravan park, its about a 10 min walk to the trains and then a 10 min train into the city  The kids really enjoyed it and to hear the excitement in there voice when they saw the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House was why we are doing this in the first place, and it's really quite cheap to stay at .Tip number 2 if your staying for a week buy a weekly train, bus, ferry ticket it was $55 per adult but is so much better than paying for one trip on the train $22  or even worse parking a car for 3 hours was $55. Crazy stuff.

The first day was spent at Manly, we ferryed across and just sat on the beach for a couple of hours, while the kids were building sandcastles I went to the biggest shopping centre I have ever seen.  We needed a stroller for Kaine because his "walk fast" really isn't, then we would end up carrying him and he is way to heavy to keep doing that. So thinking I would become very lost by myself, I found the first shop and I was out of there. Give me the 'good ol Sunnshine Plaza anyday'.

Next day we hit the famous Bondi, hoping to see some of the TV stars. It didnt happen, I did however ask Levi to pretend he was drowning so I could meet them, but he wasnt keen on that.

Jamie and the kids had a very quick freezing swim was I'll just admired the view.

So we have another 4 days here in Sydney then we are heading down the coast, then to Canberra.

Well bye for now and we hope you are enjoying our travels

XO

 

Lots of smog over the bridge

What was this called again?

Jamie helping a guy on a 12 foot uni cycle

Bridge as the sun goes down

The worms on Manly Beach

Where my famous boyfriends work.

The Famous Bondi Beach



Jamie working out on Bondi

I told Jamie all of those push ups would help. I'm just happy I have boobs.

the sites of NSW

Well it has been a crazy few days, all the kids have had vomiting and school sores, finally after visiting a few doctors it looks like we might be getting healthy again.  

We stayed a couple of nights in Bellingen so we could explore the Dorrigo World Heritge Rainforest and its absolutely stunning waterfalls.  It was so worth the drive out. We checked out the rainforest centre were I tried fitting in a bit of schooling  for Alizah & Levi, I made them some questions and they had to research the answers. After all of that thinking it was time to eat before we completed the 6.5km waterfall walk. The kids read a sign that warned of leeches and what to do if they go into you eyes, we all looked at each and said "ghee, who gets a leech in their eye?" You guessed it , Zara! and what a horrible sight it was to see after she rubbed it out, an eyeball of blood. YUCK.. Quick trip to the hospital and some eye ointment and we were on our way again.

Next stop Nambucca heads for a play in the park and a lay on the beach.  With so much to see on this coastline we kept moving and before we know it, we had to pull up for the night. I must say I do love the Camps 6 book, but OMG the directions to the free parks are quite hard to understand. Driving through a state forest on dirt roads and just hoping we find it is really very stressful, then when we did find it in the dark mind you, the fridge used all our battery and we had no lights and no real food for dinner. Rule No 1 BE PREPARED! definitely wont forget that one again.  I whipped up some scrambled eggs and it was to be and early night.

The next day we headed back on the coast making a  mental note, you don't have to call into a town or place because it has a funny name, so far it hasn't been very exciting. We did however come across Trial Bay Gaol which was really interesting.

With all the driving and the tiny bladders the wee spots are quite close together, pulling into a Natural Park to go, we found we had to pay $7 for the car to go in, we thought we might be able to sneak past use the toilet without anybody noticing we didn't pay.  Jamie said he was going to have a quick look at the beach while I sat on watch in the car.  He ran back up to be and said to me 'You have to come see this, it's really pretty."  Coming from Jamie if you know him he doesn't use the word pretty very often and WOW it was beautiful, the water was the clearest I have ever seen, the mountains and the rocks looked amazing and the sand was white and went on and on. After the kids begging for a swim we decided to set up camping and they tried their hand at surfing, not being able to get up Jamie held the board while they stood on it waiting for a wave. I know its cheating, but the kids thought they were pretty clever.
Leaving this beautiful spot really was hard to do but we were hoping for some more amazing sites along the way and just up the road we found what I am calling the best part of the trip so far.  Seal Rocks. So beautiful it is so hard to explain. I could have stayed looking out over that view for the rest of my life.

After reading a NSW travelling book we picked up for free we thought that the next stop would have to be Port Stephens as it is known for the largest bottlenose dolphins area we thought it would be great to see them in the wild. But no such luck weather turned bad again and we started to pack up for our trip out to Dubbo. Kids in the car, rain falling, camper ready to wound down, then trouble hits.  It would go down the winding mechanism was jammed and we weren't going anywhere. I'm crying, trying to call caravan repair people only to find that they were at a caravan show and no one was available until Monday, this day being Saturday and the park we were at cost a fortune, I was a mess. I went and told the reception what was going on and asked if they could do us a deal due to our circumstances, one lady said, 'no way" and me breaking into tears again another lady said she could give us a discount and was very helpful. Finally get a hold of the dealer we brought it from, he gave Jamie and idea of what they would do and having such an amazing handy husband he did fix it about 4 hours later. So now we are trying to relax and enjoy the sunshine before heading for the long drive straight through to Dubbo.

Dorrigo skywalk view

so much greenery

Tristana Falls

Crystal Falls

Dangar Falls

Family Shot at Dangar

Zara's eye not to bad yet, did get a lot worse

Trial Bay Gaol

Kids new home, looking out the old kitchen window

The Bath House

Booti Booti Natural Park

Alizah

Zara

Levi

Kaine - Dinner was yummy, Dessert was better

Booti Booti view from the rocks - we had this beach almost to ourselves

The view at Seal Rocks - I would love to look at this everyday

Cystal clear water and white sand

View from Sugarloaf lighthouse Seal Rocks

Alizah - Sugarloaf lighthouse

 

Early to rise on the lookout for Dolphins - Soldier Point, Port Stephens

Today we meet a family from Victoria, with 3 little boys. We invited them along to the sand dunes at Anna Bay- Port Stephens to do a little bit of beach 4WD.  It was so much fun, we found the tallest dune and with our trusty piece of cardboard we tried sliding down the dune.  With the cardboard not working  we rolled down the dune, ran up and down  and jumped it instead.  What an enjoyable time, kids had heaps of fun and we enjoyed some other adult company.   

Top of the Dune

Those 3 little spots on top of the dunes are kids

We watched the sunset

And the moon rise