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.......