Another early start, the great thing about camping is you get up with the sun and goto bed when its dark. Its a much simpler way of living, thugh when driving in outback Australia its a good idea to plan your stops before sunset to avoid dusk driving. when it gets dark the animals come out to play, and they seem to like car/van bumpers!

Today included a stop in the mining town of Broken Hill, though now its perhaps more well known as an outback tourist destination. It’s also a stop for the Indian Pacific on its way from Sydney to Perth and so i’d been here briefly a few years before.

Another big driving day saw us trying to get further North than we perhaps should have and its became clear that we were getting close to sunset with nowhere to stop. We set of down the barrier highway expecting a rest stop/car park of some sort, according to the map there were a couple, but really there was nothing! Thankfully as the sun was geading beyond the horizon we came across a small and abanonded town of Olary, a victim of the the drought and a downturn in farming. It was still mainataind to a basic level, and after a few discussions on whether it would turn into a wolf creek style place we stopped for the night. As it turned out it was one of the best nights stopped, being totally alone in the outback makes for a lot of fun and some amazing stars!

Daytwo of the roadtrip saw a early and very cold start! Thankfully the girls had bought porridge when we stopped in Bendigo the day before, though it took an age to cook on the gas burner which wasn’t liking the cold start.

Once warmed up we continued the trek north alog the Calder Highway taking a few random detours to ‘places of interest’ along the way -though most of the day was just mileage to get north.

Overnight was a small roadhouse outside the small town of Wentworth. Free hot showers were a bonus before heading into another cold night.

The start of a three week roadtrip Melbourne to Darwin travelling with R and K. Day one was picking up the camper from wicked campers:- The colourful and thankfully for a wicked camper, tastefully decorated van called Chuck.

Much of the morning was taken navigating out of the City before headig north to Bendigo to pick up a few supplies – lots of water, ice, a second burner for cooking and lots of snacks. Overnight was a carpark in the town of Wedderburn.

So back from celebrating a July Christmas in the Blue Mountains – its amazing how easy it was to get into the Christmas spirit, though alcohol and the cold weather helped!

Have just over a week left in Sydney before flying down to Melbourne to start a three week roadtrip to Darwin. More on that soon!

This evening i’m going to the Blue Mountains with a few friends. Until then i’m sat in the hostel lounge room with nothing to do! Everyone is at work and i’m checked out of my room and now looking after our luggage.

Oh. Its christmas eve! Tomorrow is christmas in July in the mountains.

Sydney Harbour is starting to look like its at war! The United States Navy is in town in the form of the aircraft carrier The USS Kitty Hawk and is currently birthed at Garden Island. The Australian naval ships that are usually there have been pushed out into the outer harbour which means there is a warship wherever you look!

Sydney Ferries are doing hourly cruises out to see the carrier and the Manly Ferry is going pretty close on its way to Manly too!

Before setting off on my travels this site went through a number of designs until I settled on the current one. It’s based upon the Wordpress vSlider theme from iruic.ac. The basics are still the original theme but with most the templates modified and all the images to change it from blue to green.

The theme itself is now a couple of versions on from what i’m using, and the new vSlider3 now supports variable widths and colour options. Oh for that a year or so back!

Anyway, to see what the best wordpress theme has to offer head over there now! Sadly I can’t upgrade for a long while due to being on the road and i’m stuffed if I can remember what templates i’ve modified!

Despite a brief hiccup at immigration i’m back in Sydney. They took me aside for a little chat to make sure I wasn’t traveling back and forth across the Tasman to work here on a tourist visa. Me.. work.. ha! Like thats going to happen any time soon! Anyway, with the help of some very cheap duty free from the airport the first few days were spent very drunk and hungover after meeting up with old friends in Sydney.

Since then i’ve fallen back into my Sydney way of live, only without the trips to the beach. Too cold and waaaaaay to wet. Will it ever stop raining!? I’ve even done some tourist things like going up the Sydney Tower and catching an AFL game complete with crazy Collingwood supporters

A few of us also took a trip up to Newcaslte to view the stranded Bulk Carrier just off Nobbys Beach, the Pasha Bulker! – A casualty of the recent bad weather here!

I think i’m going to stay here for another few weeks before heading down to Adelaide to start a roadtrip up to Darwin. Hopefully heading up to the Blue Mountains to experience Yulefest there. It’s christmas! In July!!

The photos are now up to date on this site, the bug in the flickr importer was fixed. So check out all the latest photos in the Galllery or head on over to the flickr mirror.

So once again I found myself sat in an airport waiting for a flight. The going somewhere else is always good, the waiting… not so much. At least this time I have free wireless internet. Other airports could learn something from Wellington, especially Sydney where i’m going (again).

1.5 hours to go… hmm and argh!! Got three hours on a flying coffin after that!

Sydney tonight – woohoo

The Gallery map was timing out so i’ve deleted all the data for it. It work’s now but there is nothing on the map! I’ll try and re-add the info back at some point!

I’m also adding my photos now to flickr and then importing them here. The importer is having a few issues at the moment so photos will be lagging behind here for a while.
The flickr photos can be found on the flickr mirror here. I like the idea of having a backup and sadly flickr is the place to have photos these days!