Homeward Bound

We spent out last week of travelling by winding our way up through New South Wales.

It was a Pretty Beach

After laboriously snaking over the Great Dividing Range we spent a few days at the aptly named Pretty Beach, in the small coastal national park of Murramarang.  The camp site was busy and expensive and the weather for most of the time was average, but it didn’t matter a bit because we were there to catch up with Deb, Gary, Ditmar and Jo, for a reunion of three quarters of the group that tackled Cape York at the beginning of our expedition.  We had a great time staying up late and reminiscing about the trip and then clearing our heads each morning with a swim in the bracing water of the Pacific Ocean.

For our next stop, we continued the theme of catching up with family by heading over to Canberra to visit Adrian, Robyn and family.  It was great to see everyone and with this visit we added the final state or territory of our journey (it's a shame we never made it across Bass Straight, so we can’t claim to have visited all of them on this trip).

Elliot. A little angel (!?!)

Whilst we were in the capital, we took the opportunity to visit ‘Questacon’, Australia’s National Science and Technology Centre to give the kids one final science lesson.  Though they were dragged away from the Xbox kicking and screaming, both the little kids and the big kids had a fantastic time working our way through the interactive exhibits.  Some of the highlights seemed to be the roller coaster simulator and the enormous sticky, iced doughnuts served in the cafe.  Probably not a good combination but we all emerged more or less unscathed.   Dare I say it was even more fun than the Gravity Discovery Centre in Gin Gin?

Staying cool in the cool caves

With two nights and only a few hundred kilometres to go before we were back in Sydney, we wanted to spend a couple days taking it easy.  We picked the campsite at Wombeyan Caves.  We’ve been before and knew it was a good place to get a camp fire going and kick back by the creek.  As it happened, the day we arrived a total fire ban was put in place and the creek had dried up, but it didn’t stop us relaxing amid the gawping kangaroos, stalking lace monitors and squawking king parrots.  The weather was warming up so we spent some of the afternoon exploring the cool caves.  The balmy evenings made us feel more like we were in the Top End than in New South Wales.  It was a good way to end the trip.  On the last day, Elliot told me that he could only vaguely remember what our house looks like and that he was probably ready to go home now.  So we did.