Kosciuszko NP, Canberra and Murramarang NP

After visiting the Travel Doctor in Wodonga and having a cocktail of vaccinations in preparation for our trip to South East Asia we drove to the stunningly beautiful Kosciuszko National Park and had a few nights enjoying the scenery. We had lots of rain, wind and mist so we didn't manage to walk to the top of the highest mountain in Australia but we did see lots of kangaroos and other fab wildlife and it was nice being in such a lovely place.

Below is the view from Charlotte Pass; these clouds were moving at 90 km per hour - fun to watch:

We left the wilderness and drove to Canberra to get our top-up vaccinations. We had a few days sight-seeing in the capital and it was much greener that we expected.

Here is a view of Parliament House, which was opened in 1988 by our lovely Queen:

This is the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, which has intermittently existed on the lawns of Old Parliament House since 1972 and permanently since 1992.

We walked to the wonderful War Memorial and spent hours looking around the very detailed and moving WW2 exhibit.

They also had an exhibit for the service men that had been awarded the Victoria Cross and we found a 'Gurney' who fought in WW2 and been killed but was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

Here's the view from the war memorial all the way down to the Old Parliament House and the new Parliament House.

We left the capital and drove to Batemans Bay and visited the fabulous Birldland Animal Park.

Here is Nic eating a 'Golden Gaytime' (no comment)

We also caught a couple of wallabies procreating - nice!

We met Peanut the wombat

and we were lucky enough to give him a cuddle:

This is Jasmine. She was supposed to be the one we cuddled but at 2.30 she was fast asleep. She is so cute it's ridiculous and we got to play with her (through the bars).

This is a Corella called Ned Kelly, thus named as he likes to stick his head in a can?

We stayed a couple of nights in Murramarang National Park.. The campsite is in the forest and we could see the ocean and this beach from our van. It's strange being back at the Pacific Ocean, which we left behind last July.

The first night was blissfully quiet but the following day a bunch of blokes turned up on a Stag Do and drank all day. They were quite amusing to listen to though and one of them had a great laugh like Santa.

Melbourne, Wilsons Promontory NP, Mount Buffalo NP and Wodonga/Albury

Here I am back in Melbourne after our Tassie trip. This is a cow in a tree?




Since leaving Melbourne we've been slowly travelling around North East Victoria. First we visited Wilsons Promontory NP where we went on some walks and visited Squeaky Beach with its squeaky sand. Here's a view of the coast from the top of Mt Oberon:

Next we made our way to Mt Buffalo NP. We drove up and up and then walked the final part to get to the summit. Unfortunately it was misty but it was still very beautiful. Here's Nic making his way back down. I think we've been down under for too long as we both did the walk in our flip flops (thongs!).

The next day we did not get out of the van due to the heavy rain and the following day we found 3 spiders (2 of them huge Huntsman's) in the doors. They'd obviously come in to hide from the rain - scary!

The next day the rain stopped so went went on a lovely walk. Unfortunately we still had a lot of mist so we didn't see the gorge.

On the way down the mist cleared and the views were spectacular and the water falls were gushing like crazy because of the all the rain.

We left Mr Buffalo and drove through the Alpine ranges to a place called Yackandadah, where we stopped at a lovely campsite full of ducks and ducklings.

Next we headed to Wodonga/Albury, which experienced flooding recently as it's on the famous Murray River. Up to this year they'd had 15 years of drought, so the area is gorgeous and green instead of the normal brown. We stayed 2 nights, all on our own (apart form the possums and very noisy cockatoos and kookaburras), at a lovely spot in Mt Ganya State Forest.

While we were walking around the top of the mountain (big hill) we very briefly saw a Lyrebird (very exciting) and this huge crazy looking beetle:

We've seen too many spiders in the last few days, including this small spiky chap:

We'll now be crossing over the border into New South Wales, which feels really strange. We're only a days drive from Sydney, which means our loop of Australia is almost complete. Amazing! We will however be taking a very converluted route as we've got 6 weeks to get there!

Cradle Mountain, Tasmania

After leaving Strahan we cycled to Rosebery and then we had our hardest day of cycling as we had to climb up to 930 metres. We were so excited and relieved to arrive. We celebrated with a bottle of red wine and a huge spag. bol.

The following day we had a lot of drizzle and mist but we did venture out into the national park and had a lovely walk.


We also booked a night time animal watching trip as we still hadn't seen a wild wombat. Imagine our surprise when we then saw one as bold as brass waddling about the campsite. Here he is:


We did have fun on the animal spotting trip though and saw loads of wombats, pademelons, wallabies and possums. We also saw a quoll (small spotted carnivorous marsupial) , which was fab. We didn't see any wild Tasmanian Devils but never mind.

The following day we had some sun and we had a lovely walk around Dove Lake with the fabulous Cradle Mountain looming above us. The day before we couldn't even see the lake never mind the mountain due to the mist. Here we are posing with the lake and the mountain:


Due to the forcasted poor weather and the enormous quantity of wildlife that would like to eat our food and shoes we decided to swap the tent for an Alpine Cabin (shed). We had 3 nights in this and on the last night it was so cold we couldn't sleep but at least we didn't get any unwanted night time visitors.


We left the stunningly beautiful Cradle Mountain and cycled downhill back to Devenport in pouring down rain.

The following day we got the ferry back to Melbourne. We had 10 hours to fill so we watched 2 kid's films, learnt how to draw cartoons and listened to a wildlife talk.

We had a night in a hotel room with the comfiest bed that we've slept in since staying with Jeff and Yvonne in Perth.

The following day we collected our 'as good as new' van and we were very excited to have it back. Unfortunately the battery was flat so we bump-started it and then I stupidly stalled it while we were in 3 lanes of traffic. Luckily a man came to help us push it and we got it started.

We have now left Melbourne and we saw some flooded roads on the way out. Hopefully all of the rain has stopped now and we can continue our journey back to Sydney.