Weds 30 Sept 2009 Phillip Island, SE of Melbourne.

Well followers, so much for my weekly update, after 3 weeks! I'll update as much as I can in the time I have. John is having a lie down, almost finished him of I have, but we will be 3 days in melbourne with my old pal Maureen from Manhattan days, only 37 years ago. Then we fly to NZ to see Kathy and Co at last. The Samoan earthquake/ tsunami alert for NZ was cancelled this morning, thank goodness for they have recently moved beachside.

Last thing, we were in Queensland. We left Jim rather tearfully, and met Peter and Di in Mooloolaba for one night as we were going in opposite directions. Good gossip and nosh, walks on the beach, a swim or 2 and we were off again. The next campsite was at Somerset Dam where we were treated to a show of platypus, always a very rewarding thing in the wild.

Then a slight misreading of the map, plus not enough local information (something we have learned to respect greatly) found us toiling up the one and only steep approach to Toowoomba, on a dual carriageway, so no turning around and going down. We are ASHAMED to admit that Rita once again boiled...............but thanks to RACQ, we were able to get a lift on a tilt tray up the last 2kms of hill, where she cooled off, recovered and loyally soldiered on. What a girl!!! We nurse this baby along, our eyes repeatedly flicking to the temp guage, very much like our old boat "Mayflower" eh Rod?
Toowoomba is the garden city of OZ (they all claim to be something or other) but we were too early, cold weather, so we pressed on, feeling very chastened.

After much messing around looking at this and that we managed to sqeeze over the border into NSW, where we were immediately stunned by the Border Ranges Nat Park. World heritage Rainforest, bower birds, lyre birds, whip birds, fireflies, not to mention the stunning flora, trees etc. Stayed 2 days, too good to leave. We then wandered around some more, round 3 sides of the impressive extinct volcano Mt warning, via the delightful friendly town of Kyogle, hippie world in Nimbin (try googling it) , so like Myddfai and Randhirmwyn in mid Wales, to Byron Bay, the Easternmost point of our mainland. Well we just happened to hit it on the first day of school hols, it was huge disappointment, so we did a flit to Broken Heads, very nice and much quieter. By the way John managed to get an offer of pot in Nimbin, and we had only been there 10 mins! We had been warned. The countryside around Nimbin was described to us as similar to the Bermuda Triangle, you can just disappear! Anyway we did enjoy it their, such a groovy hippie atmosphere, flowing skirts and flower power.

Then we determined to strike hard into the hinterland and cover some k's southwards. We found the New England Highway, crossed the Continental Divide and found ourselves back in England! This merged into the Celtic Way where place names were Gwydir Highway, Glen innes and Llangothlen, (they can never pronounce it can they) Craigieburn, Hungerford (we found ourselves looking for Wantage!) to name but a few. Even found some Stonehenge style standing stones. We topped out at Ben Lomond 1410 metres.
Spent the night at Guyra which boasts the highest caravan park in Oz. (in case you are worrying about Rita, these climbs were gradual!)

Guyra gave us a treat - a free camp area right next to the Country Club, so we introduced ourselves and asked if we could watch the rugby union international between Aust and NZ - no worries. Well, the club filled up with masses of people and the game came on and we were right in the front row....and it turned out no-one else was watching!!! Spoils the atmosphere somewhat. Q'land and NSW are SERIOUSLY rugby league and have barely even heard of Aussie Rules football, let alone rugby union. And if that wasn't enough, when we went into the dining room, we became aware there were some strange people, and they all looked the same...it's only a small place...not a lot of outside interaction...say no more! But we did enjoy it in spite of an embarrassing loss. Our campsite was called "Mother of Ducks Lagoon", and an important food place for ye ancient aboriginals. We were camped by 2 Winnebagos, one called Alpine which was massive with slide out rooms, and the other was Nullarbor, which was more modest but still dwarfed us. Ah well, we are still having the same kind of fun, better really because we can get into more nooky places.

So it was back on the road to do long hauls to get through NSW, which is a large place and has a huge number of fab Nat Parks. So it was back to highway cricket, purple gloves and discussing other drivers' sex lives. Well, you have to pass the time and keep each other awake!

By this stage we were starting to wonder "when does it start to go down hill?"
Suddenly John's national guide to ABC Classic FM radio came into it's own - music-whoopee, Margaret Throsby, Julia Lester and all his other heroines.
We also wondered if we were actually going the wrong way round Oz because all the Visitor Information Centres are on the way out of towns and on the other side of the road? Too late now, we're not going back.
Then Gunnedah, which claims it is the Koala Capital of the world; there's always a claim.

You've seen the film The Dish? The Radio Telescope that just happened to be operational when the Apollo 11 thing happened. It suddenly became world famous. Well we were there man, so coooool. Parkes NSW, such a mass of information and a 3D film that virtually took you into space. Wow. Wow. Check your atlases.

Recounting this has exhausted me, we had no idea we would be exposed to so much, and 3 months is hardly enough time to take it all in. I'll stop now, even though we are near Melbourne, and will update when we get to Kathy's on Oct 14, if not before.

Love from Po and John
Did I mention I have decided to go Senior Blonde?