Onwards to Eden

Pressing on from Merimbula it was all beaches and national parks. After a stop at Pambula surf beach....

Pambula Beach

....we pulled into Ben Boyd National Park. More off roading for Reggie and he was starting to look pretty rugged and dusty :-)

 We headed to The Pinnacles - a rock feature by the beach. It was totally deserted and pretty stunning.

We then stopped by Eden for some lunch and then into the other half of the Ben Boyd National Park the other side of the town. Ben Boyd was an interesting sounding chap - a slightly crazy Scottish guy, apparently of imposing appearance. He went to Australia to build his fortune through all manner of enterprises. He set about establishing a town that would rival Sydney named after himself - Boydtown - and borrowed and juggled his way to success in his various businesses, whaling and farming and so on. He had some fairly dubious views on getting cheap labour and after a spell of success his finances crumbled and he set off for the gold fields in Australia, then the USA, also ending in failure. He was last seen disappearing into the rainforest in the Solomon Islands with a servant. Shots were heard from the trees and he was never seen again. A strange character to name such a beautiful area after, but there you go.......

There are a few of Ben Boyd's follys still dotted around - an Elizabethan style manor house and Boyd Tower, which was supposed to be a lighthouse, but was never commissioned.
Instead it became a lookout for whale spotting in Twofold Bay. It seemed hard to imagine as we stared out at this huge expanse of calm, clear water, but it used to be the scene of many a battle between whaling boats and the humpback and southern right whales that visit the area. Now whale watching is one of the key local industries, but back in the day whales were caught and killed in a weird alliance between man and orca. Killer whales herded whales into the bay, jumping around to alert the local whaling teams. They would keep the whales penned in and exhaust them until the whaling boats arrived to finish the job. The bargain was the whalers would then leave the killer whales to feast on the tongue and lips of the dead whales - the only bit they were interested in - and then come back the next day to collect. Grim, but pretty amazing.

One of the orcas was a particular favourite...Old Tom. The orca pod didn't visit after Tom died and the whaling industry sort of died with him. He was so popular they built a museum to put him in. A pretty cool building too - nice bit of art deco.

Eden was brill. Beautiful and a good pub. A few nice cafes too down at the still very active harbour. The fisherman were chuckling away in the pub the night we were in at some 'yachties' - a crew that seemed to be halfway through the Sydney to Hobart boat race stopping off for the night. I'm not sure they were too impressed with the part-time sailors.
The next morning we had a relax and a read on the beach, one last look at the stunning bay and it was time to head out of Eden. At this point Reggie's battery light came on.....meh, probably be fine.....

Christmas on the coast....

Clearly we've not yet managed San Francisco Part 2. In fact we've been poor. But we'll come back to them. Let's talk Christmas!

Sydney's Christmas tree

Our second one in Oz and again no sense of feeling remotely Christmasey. Just too weird when it's even 21 degrees overnight. Both our offices were closed, no visitors and our new pride and joy, Reggie, parked outside....a road trip was the only answer. 

After deciding we'd only had bad luck with rain north of Sydney we decided on a route that took in the NSW south coast down to the border with Victoria then inland to the area home to Australia's ski resorts in Winter. Finally heading back to Sydney via a deep space centre and a concrete sheep. Actually those last two ended up a little later than planned due to a little rest that Reggie had to take in Canberra, but we'll come back to that. 

Reggie the Honda in all his sports coupe splendour

After amazing summer weather so far we set off on Christmas Day afternoon... in absolutely torrential rain. One of Reggie's endearing features is leaking in wet weather so it was a damp start. First stop was Berry, a lovely town a couple of hours south of Sydney that we've passed through a few times. Full of tea shops, it's always packed with scone hunters, but was deserted on Christmas Day so we pulled in out of the rain to our motel and set about eating a lot of cheese. Well something had to be like Christmas. 

Since my phone saw fit to wipe all of my photos you're spared a shot of rainy Berry, but after coffee and doughnuts on Boxing Day morning we headed south. Turning off the Princes Highway towards Murramarang National Park we pulled into our campsite on Merry Beach. It was a beautiful spot right on the beach with kangaroos just bouncing around between the tents and winnebagos.

Our trusty teepee right before we got started on our tea of boil in a bag curry. Surprisingly good.

Kangaroo family stop by complete with joey

We finally saw our first kangaroo in full on speed-bouncing mode. Chased by an optimistic Alsatian. The dog was left for dust.

The next day we continued down the coast through little villages and holiday spots and turned off the highway on to the coast road crossing the lovely Wallanga Lake on rickety wooden bridges.

This part of the world is called the Sapphire Coast. The water is almost unbelievable colours of blue and green and crystal clear. Reggie's off roading experience was again called into action as we headed into Mimosa Rocks National Park in search of a place to camp. Ben decided it wasn't the spot for us....I think he was scared of the long drop (immaculately kept as always in Oz). So we pressed on through yet more pretty beach villages to the small town of Merimbula and found another beach side camping spot.

to be continued.......