Travelling South

After Sydney, we were desperate to hit the road! But which way should we go round this enormous country? Well we were advised by many ozzies to head south before the summer and then, come back up north when we get to Perth in the winter in order to avoid the extremely hot and wet tropical summer… Fair enough! Off we go to Bombo beach near Wollongong to check out on the surfers and big waves, and later on to Jervis Bay for a little walk on a magnificent white sanded beach and a bit dolphins and whale watching, and finally to Batesmans Bay which is where most of the people from Canberra spend their holidays.

After these 4 nights camping right next to the Pacific Ocean, we went back up to Canberra to meet Lyn, Barry, Stephanie and Dan who are family friends. It was a great opportunity to meet Australians and we got so many answers to all our questions about the Australian way of life. We must say that we were quite spoilt too so Canberra was definitely worth it! Some of our questions were about the fruit-picking as Barry used to pick fruit when he was young, but unfortunately, we were a little too early in the season, so while the fruit get right, we decided to visit some other friends in Melbourne.  

We stopped in Albury for a night which was very pleasant and of course, we had a BBQ next to the River Murray. However, the next day, our van was feeling very tired and we broke down in some boring place and had to wait over the weekend for a mechanic to check it out. Finally we decided to continue our trip down to Melbourne after two days since the repairs would have taken another week and cost us a lot a money…

We made it to Melbourne and we were decided to get the van fixed, but bad luck again, I crashed into a Ford Falcon either because of a brake problem, either because I got muddled up with the pedals… I couldn’t really tell… Anyway, that was the end of that terrible van. Luckily nobody was injured and I was covered by insurance, but still, I was charged quite a lot since it was my fault, and of course, no more chance for us to resell the van with all its problems + crash…

The next day we were feeling quite bad because no more car, no more “home” and a budget cut by half. But this is part of the adventure and “no worries”, we quickly established a new plan! We decided to stay for a bit in this wonderful city full of colors, of culture and things to do in order to find a job and settle for bit and hopefully to earn a bit of cash which will enable us to hit the road again (rented car, buses, plains, trains or whatever) so we can continue to discover this amazing country.  To be continued…