Happy New Year !!

We left Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park after lunch. We got to Sydney in the late afternoon and battled to find parking because everybody was planting their chairs and tables for the New Years fireworks. We found a good spot, on a little hill already crowded with people. We were told that we have a great view from there. We really had a nice evening !!!

Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park

The view from West Head Lookout.

Ku-ring-gai Chase is a national park in NSW, 25 km north of Sydney. Ku-ring-gai is generally regarded as a popular tourist destination, known for its scenic setting on the edge of a southern branch of the Hawksbury River as well as rock engravings and other art of Aboriginal origin. Picnicking, boating, and fishing facilities can be found throughout the park.

Aboriginal engravings

...

For supper we decided to make hamburgers. 

Ben was the cook and they were yummy !!!!!

The Blue Mountains National Park

The Blue Mountains

Honeymoon Point

      

The Three Sister

Leura Cascades

A giant fern

The Blue Mountains is a mountainous region in New South Wales. It borders on Sydney's metropolitan area. Consisting mainly of a sandstone plateau, the area is dissected by gorges up to 760 metres deep. The highest point of the range is 1,190 metres above sea level. A large part of the Blue Mountains is incorporated into the Greater Blue Mountains Area World Heritage Site, consisting of seven national park areas and a conservation reserve. We are going to stay here for a couple of days to visit the natural sites such as Gordon Falls, The Three Sisters, Leura Cascades, Honeymoon Point etc...

Washing day :-)

Ben washing clothes in a rest area in the Blue Mt.

Hanging our clothes on the van to let them dry in the sun

A stop in the Blue Mountains:
Today we thought that we had to wash all our dirty clothes because the washing bag was getting fuller and fuller. Ben proposed to do it. We wash our clothes by hand in a plastic bassin and with some washing liquid. Luckily it is sunny otherwise the clothes will take ages to dry !

A present !

After working on the farm for 12 days, we have finished picking all the cherries. We stayed in Orange for a couple more days and today we are leaving to go and visit the Blue Mountains National Park. Before we left the cherry farm our employer gave us a little present, a box of 2kg of cherries worth about $20 ! Yum yum !!  

Cherry Picking

Lunch break

We have found work with Gaeta &  Sons. They are very friendly people, easy to work with. The job isvery tirring but fun and we get to eat as many cherries we want ! The farmer allowes us to park our van in one of his fields and we can use the shower that is in one of his sheds. There is only cold water but its better that to have to go into town and wash ourselves in the toilet bassin. We work long hours, we usually get up at 5:30 am and start work at 6 or 6:30 to finish at about 6 or 7 pm.
In 2 weeks we picked about 4 tons of cherries !!!

Orange-NSW

Walking in the botanical garden

                                                    












We are looking for work. We found out that the cherry picking season is starting in a couple of weeks time so we decide to head for Orange now so that we are sure of finding work. We travelled by night and drove through the Blue Mountains in the dark so we couldn't admire the sights but we were determined to stop on our way back. We had to be very careful while driving because there were some kangaroos crossing the road. We found a rest area, Macquerrie Rest Area, about 25kms away from Orange but it was a peaceful place in the middle of nowhere with lots of kangaroos. The next day we went around farms to find out when the cherry picking season started exactly. Most of the farmers to us we were very early, the season only starting in about 2 weeks time. We left our phone number with some of them hoping they woud phone us once the cherries were ripe... While the cherries were ripening we had plenty of time to visit the Botanical gardens, do a tour of all the charity shops, spend a few days reading and relaxing at the rest area but we also had time to be bored...Orange being a small town there is really not much to do there. We found a public toilet where we could wash ourselves and wash our clothes without having people noticing us, hehehe...

              

                       Possum                                                     Our bathroom

Brisbane

We have finally arrived in the capital and most populated city of the state of Queensland. It's quite a nice city. We are going to stay here for a couple of days. Here are some photos of the city, Roma Parkland and the Botanical gardens.

Bribie Island National Park

Dolphin

 This evening we arrived at Bribie Island. Bribie Island is one of two islands connected to the Queensland mainland by a bridge. We really wondered if it was worth coming here and we didn't regret it. We cooked our meal on one of those public barbecues and then visited the National Park and went for walks. We spotted a lot of dolphins fishing along the shore of Red Beach. It's a very wild and pretty place.

Cooking our food using a public BBQ

Rainbow Beach

Still driving towards Brisbane.On our way to Rainbow Beach we stopped at Tiaro and Tin Can Bay. At Rainbow Beach, Ben went for a swim. We also filled our jerrican with drinking water.

Hervey Bay - Fraser Island

                                                                       

                                                                       Having breakfast by the beach

We are in Hervey Bay. Its a very nice town along the coast. From Hervey Bay you can catch a boat to Fraser Island. As we can take our van there because there aren't any roads but just big sand streches, we found out how much it would cost to hire a 4x4 with other people. The prices were quite high and when we visited the Information Center somebody came in to complain that the 4x4 weren't serviced and that it was outrageous that the person who hired the vehicle should be the one to pay for reparations when it was the company how hired it was responsible. So we then thought that we would go there by boat as foot passenger and go for walks around the island, but when we looked at the map we noticed that the campsite was at least 4hours walk from the drop off point and that from the campsite to any other interesting place to see there was 4 and 8 hours walk. We then thought of going on a tour which costs about $150 each for the day. You go there on a 4x4 bus. The problems now were the price (quite a lot of money for us) and the fact that we will be on a bus crowded with other people. We decided to visit Fraser Island on our way back if we had time.

Woodgate Beach - Our first kangaroos !

             

                     


                    After leaving Bunderberg we started driving back down towards Brisbane. We stopped at Bargara where we took a shower at the beach. We then drove through Childers and to Woodgate Beach where we decided to stop for the day. We saw our first kangaroos today, they were quite impressive and are really not scared of us. We saw some hopping around the houses along the beach and some lying in the grass.

Having lunch at Woodgate Beach

Mon Repos Beach

Today we went to Mon Repos Beach which is part of a Conservation Park. It's one of the beaches in Australia where the sea turtles come once a year to lay their eggs. The is a little exhibition about turtles, how they live etc... and then went for a walk on the Turtle Trail...

Bundaberg

Today we left Gympie for Bundaberg. Its quite an ugly town and I really didn't like it. We stopped at a rest area for lunch and went to the visitor center to find out when we could see the sea turtles lay there eggs.The lady at the V.C told us that we had to wait at least another week to be able to see them. I was a bit disapointed but didn't really ant to stay another week in Bundaberg. We decided we would go to Mon Repos Beach tomorrow and then head down to Brisbane while syopping at a few places on the way.

Gympie

We spent the day in Noosa. We went for a walk on the beach, for a swim and grocery shopping. We found a shop that sold South African products and decided to take a look at the stuff they had. We bought some biltong which was very expensive and so me sherbert lolipops. I then cut Ben's hair outside in the park and he shaved himself by plugging the razor in the cigarette lighter.


We left in the afternoon and got to Gympie in the evening. We decided to spend the night at Chatsworth Park, a rest area just 3 kms outside Gympie. The area was really nice.

Ben's first shave in the van

First night in the van !

Tonight we will be spending our very first night in our van. We are going to see what the next 9 months are going to be like. We battled to find a place to sleep in Noosa because its soo packed with tourists and there are 'no camping' signs all over the place. We found a parking were there weren't any signs, well none that said 'no camping' so we decided to spend the night there.
We got a nice suprise the following morning. We got woken up by a policemen who was knocking on our car window. We opened our window and the policeman said that we were not allowed to 'camp' here. We told him we didn't know. He points to a sign that we did see the day before but as we didn't know what it meant we took no notice. Anyway he wasn't very friendly and gave us a $100 fine !!!!!! Welcome to Australia ! We spend our first night in our van and we get our first fine...


The sign in question:

Off we go...to Noosa Head !!

We are leaving Capalaba to drive up the coast to Noosa. Australian like going there on holiday and we thought it might be a nice place to visit and stop at for our first night in the van.

The van : (before and after)

We have taken the back seats out to be able to fit a matress and all our belongings. We worked about 4 days on it and it has turned out to be really nice. We are very happy with it ! We went to Bunnings to buy screews, nails, bolts, wood, curtain rails,  etc...to KMart for a duvet, a gas bottle, a gas cooker, a petrol jerrican, a water jerrican a camping table and chairs etc...to  charity shops to buy a matress, pilow cases and duvet cover, towels, plates, knives and forks and pots and pans.


Before:

After: