Sunday, March 9, 2008

Part 2 of the Great Adventure - Friday 7th March

After our intermission in Sydney, here we are into the second part of our tour. And it started in sunshine so that was a good sign. Suitcases packed and the car loaded, we said our goodbyes and set off at 11.00am. Getting out of Sydney suburbs was no great problem, but it did seem to take ages to leave built up areas behind – then suddenly we were in the countryside, with bush on both sides of the road. The vegetation is so different from NZ, mostly gum trees of varying types and hardly any ferns. We had decided to go up the coast road on the way north. The Pacific Highway and Freeway 1 travel almost exactly the same route for much of the way and, for part of it, we had to join the freeway as the highway was closed. Their road signing can be quite confusing especially if you are not familiar with place names along the route. After rejoining the road we wanted at Mooney Mooney (no kidding), we ended up in Terrigal on the coast about 80km from Sydney for coffee. It’s a pretty, friendly place and we watched a group of schoolchildren having a surfing lesson and sent some postcards to Amy and Andy.

Back on the road again, we just had to make a detour into and take a photo – how could we resist such a crazy named place? Then we drove to The Entrance – yes, that IS the town’s name and it is the narrow entrance to a sprawling harbour, stretching north and south,. We got there just in time to see the pelicans being fed – there were loads! It’s become quite a visitor attraction and the pelican feeders give a talk on how the custom arose and how they look after injured birds too. Having decided to stay in the area overnight, we found the Tourist office beside a great water play area for the kids and asked for help. Would you believe it? There was a Country Music Festival on over the weekend and nearly all the accommodation was full! How do we manage to do it? However, we did get a unit at the Hibiscus motel 20km further north at Budgewoi – we thought NZ names were funny but Oz is running them very close and we’ve only just started here! It was right beside a lake and very quiet.
We had dinner in our room and settled down for our first night back on the road.

1 comment:

The Joneses said...

Just realised your blog is showing UK time. I wondered why you were up at 5.17am!