Leaving Sydney for Kangaroo Valley

After a month in Sydney for me and three months for Sandra it was time to move on and get on with the trip. This was a great disappointment for Steven and Ana who, I suspect, were hoping for us to move on to the hallway having completed the decoration of two bedrooms !!

"Granny don't go" - a tearful Talia upon hearing Sandra was leaving

One of the reasons for Sandra's more prolonged stay was “bonding” with the grandchildren. This was obviously a great success as the parting goodbyes were particularly heart-wrenching with young Anatalia clinging tearfully to Sandra saying “I don't want to lose you Granny”.

Packed and ready to go

We delayed our departure by a day in order to hopefully avoid our old enemy the rain but also to pick up some up-to-date maps for the trip. We went into the city centre for the maps and, as this was the first time I had been into the city on this trip, we did one or two tourist things, had lunch and returned home via a ferry travelling past the Opera House and under the Harbour Bridge. We had missed the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras but saw some evidence of the event in the shape of a couple of Gay ATM machines at a bank.

A Gay ATM - celebrating the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras

After using Johann's old tent for our trial camping trip to Goulburn River we had decided to buy a new tent for the main trip. The brilliant Oztent we bought for the last trip was out of the question as, being over 2 metres long in its bag, there was no room for it on the smaller Honda CRV. We opted for a Coleman Instant Up 8 man tent – hopefully with emphasis on the “Instant” - we had no intention of spending ages wrestling to thread poles through sleeves in order to put up house for the night. In an ideal world we should have had a trial run of the new tent before setting out – even if this meant erecting it in the back garden. However, with the weather being wet, it didn't seem to be a good idea and we decided to set off without a trial – but with crossed fingers.

With the car loaded and departure photographs taken – we set off.

As yet we have no overall plan for the trip. Johann and Stretch will be joining us for some of the time with their fancy new camper trailer but, as they will not be able to leave Sydney for another month, the provisional idea is that Sandra and I bum around southern New South Wales and Victoria and meet up with them sometime in April at Broken Hill – which is worth a visit if only for the name.

We did have a brief sort of planning meeting where each sister was asked to state their preferred regions of Australia to visit – the results were not particularly helpful, with the four regions being: the far South of Western Australia – the far North of Western Australia – the far South of Eastern Australia – the far North of Eastern Australia i.e. the four furthest points of the continent ! The only common factor was a visit to Darwin to visit sister number three in Humpty Doo.

As I write this we are happily ensconced in Kangaroo Valley on a campsite a few hours south of Sydney that Sandra had visited a couple of months ago. As my navigator she decided to take a rural route off the main highway and we spent hours travelling through suburb after suburb – it wasn't as rural as she thought! However we found Kangaroo Valley without any problems and, I am delighted to say, managed to get the tent out of it's bag and erected within a few minutes.

Our campsite with new tent

Solar panels to charge the battery to run the fridge to keep the beer cold

Our campsite by the river is idyllic although Sandra keeps mumping on about how much better it would be if we had brought a canoe – goodness knows where we would put one. The other big draw back is the infestation of wombats. They hide in their wombat holes during daylight hours but, come dusk, as you are getting down to cooking and having a glass of wine, they come bumbling out of the undergrowth to graze like a herd of miniature buffalo. Throughout the night they can be heard snuffling around the tent, chomping on the grass and have the uncanny knack of knowing exactly where to poo so that you stand on it as you get out of the tent next day. Wombat poo has the pungent aroma and the texture of well rotted horse manure – probably very good for roses and rhubarb – but we could probably live without it!



A rather scabby wombat outside our tent