Hi everyone,
Time to write a new blog! When I left Perth on 13 December the weather was so clear that I took photos from the air plane during the 5 hours long-haul flight to Sydney. Unfortunately we did not fly over Sydney’s Harbour. I had a week to cover sights in and around Sydney before Marjo was coming from Amsterdam, so I decided to go to the nearby national parks: Royal and Ku Ring Gai Chase NP. Royal is great, but Ku Ring Gai is much better for kayaking and hiking. When Marjo arrived we explored the city centre of city and headed afterwards for a road trip to Melbourne and then back to Sydney for New Year’s Eve (NYE). See the travel map for the exact route. Our first call was in the pretty city of Canberra where the national museums and war memorial are located. All of them impressive and very worth visiting, but most people in fact decide to bypass Canberra. The city was also a good break on the very windy roads to the Snowy Mountains and Mt Kosciuszko NP. Unfortunately the weather in the national park was very bad and we decided to cancel the summit walk as the view would be no more than clouds. Instead we changed our plans to go to Melbourne for two days. We stayed at Eefje’s place near St Kilda where she lives with her boyfriend. It was good to see a friend after such a long time and bringing back good memories is one of the things we did. Melbourne is definitely not the worse place to hang out! It’s always good to go to the city and markets. One of the places Marjo and I missed out was in fact St Kilda. It’s a very laid back neighbourhood similar to Fremantle. And just as a matter of coincidence we ended up on the pier where we encountered pinguins during the day. This was the start of some of the best wildlife spotting I had after my time in Cameroon and Central America. The two days flew and the cosy chats with spicy curries came to an end. It was time to say goodbye.
Before I left Perth I contacted someone in Melbourne to buy a LEGO Sydney Opera House. While we drove into Melbourne we first stopped at the seller’s house to pick up the 5kg weighing box. Guess the size of the box 😉