With our action packed Sydney stay we didn’t get chance to do the walking tour Sue had intended – but maybe we’ll be back !!!!!
Thurs 3rd Jan
Picked up our car, from Avis. Wanted to upgrade to a bigger one with Sat Nav, which took a while, but we got there, the Toyota KLUGER was filthy but hey ho.
Tried to top up credit on the Aussie phone online , did it all wrong 🤔had to go into Vodafone store to sort it out, which they did. We’ve found the people here soooooo nice and extremely helpful.
Forgot to mention before, our Novotel in Manly was run almost entirely by delightful young girls, they couldn’t do enough for us. Even the girl who took our luggage (all 6 huge/heavy) items then moved them when we swapped rooms really didn’t want to take the tip, but I insisted.
They were the best, really genuine nice kids.
Anyway, next stop Botany Bay where the first fleet of convicts landed in 1788, unfortunately it was lashing down so we couldn’t/didn’t explore.
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e to see the Blue Mountains sadly, but we can’t do it all. The South was calling us.
Lunch at Kiama-family from hell parked next to us and caused havoc unloading themselves from their car, then sat right next to us for lunch. Really AWFUL accents that just grated😡
Soon after that we through Berry, pretty quaint little town/village, wish we’d stopped there.
Passed The Arbour won best retirement living village in 🇦🇺 in 2014. Beautiful area.
Arrived in Huskisson to find it rammed full of camping types with hoards of kids
😩😂😂
But there were several beautiful beaches and our BnB was great too.
The scenery on this journey south is gorgeous, lush green rolling hills like, just like South Wales. No Wonder it’s called NSW !!!!!
We Stopped in several places – Hyams beach
Mollymook
Batemans Bay
Mogo-Gold mining village.
Moruya nice riverside town with a golf course
Kianga
Narooma, a beautiful spot. Today so far we’d stopped in 5 places looking for lunch but they were all no good or too busy. We spotted a car park opposite Meads bakery, having seen ads for pies all down the coast in QLD and resisted, here we had our first pie!! It’ll be Sue’s last but Gav may be tempted to try more.
Back in the car after 2 mins we passed a cafe called Million Dollar View – 😫
Turned off A1 onto tourist route 9
Wow !!!
Black swans on the Lake.
We passed this sign???
Not long after came
Montreal goldfield ‘dangerous mine-shafts’ signs to keep gold diggers at Bay ? 😜
Beautiful Bermagui
What a fantastically scenic trip we’ve had down the Sapphire Coast. We would recommend that drive to anybody.
We didn’t have the highest hopes of Merimbula as whenever we mentioned it to anyone they didn’t comment. Also our at T Agent had booked us into the 3 star comfort inn, but it’s brilliant and turns out to be 4⭐️ and brilliant, the receptionist has been superbly helpful, bringing ice, lemon and pool towels , the room is great with a little kitchenette, plenty of room to keep Our byo wine & Gin cool. And Sue had the pool to herself !!!!
The waterfront is amazing with fab 360 views
Our arrival was made all the more special as we received a very welcoming text from Rosie Hunter which opened with
‘Happy new year my favourite travelling godparents! ‘
After a quick phone catch up we’ve arranged where to eat tonight, also she’s giving us a ‘cheat sheet’ of must see things in Melbourne before we meet up with her & Dave for dinner next Tuesday.
We’re feeling very well catered for altogether.
The Merimbula Wharf restaurant was nothing short of superb, fab food n wine, spectacular balcony table where we witnessed the first sunset of our trip so far
Curiously there were a bunch of people gearing up to go diving, but it was almost dark?
Merimbula – meaning place of two/divided waters – definitely under promised and over delivered.
Fri 5th Jan
We’ve a 4/5 hour drive to our next stop at Sale ( Vic not Manchester) but Sue needs to just admire the view for another couple of hours before we head off
We spent A little while hugging the Coast then miles of internal forestland – deja vu in WA 😳
At Maramingo creek we crossed into Victoria – another state under our belts !!!!!!
We Had a scary hour when the fuel light came on, Sat. Nav told us it was 93km to next ⛽️😫. This is soooo unlike Mr C but never mind, half an hour later we saw a sign to Mallacoota 25k off the road but we figured it was worth the risk.
As well as getting fuel it turned out to be a gorgeous place
Back on the road after our 50km detour.
The nav told us that the inland route was way quicker which is why we went that way, in order to get to Sale in time to see what delights they had to offer.
Hindsight tells us that we should have taken the coastal route coz
‘there’s nothing to see here’
The only thing of ANY interest to us/that we can gather is The Swing Bridge.
Allegedly it’s the oldest working one in the whole of OZ !!!!
So we ‘swung by’ 😂 for a look.
After all that excitement we had a cheeky Chinese and an early night.
Sat 6th Jan
Up with the larks, we took a chance that Sale Golf Club would be able to accommodate us, we wanted to play early as we knew the temp was due to reach 40+ in the afternoon. The course had Amazingly good, but small greens, the rest of the course about matched up to the town 🤔 .
Arriving in Foster we fancied a winery for lunch. What we found certainly didn’t disappoint. Basia Mille was at the end of a 4km dirt track, very Tuscan by design and a view through their vines and olive groves to take your breath away.
Lunch was superb and the wines matched. The temp had already reached 40 + so we sat inside, but without A/C it was murderous, retreating to the gazebo for dessert was hotter but at least there was a breeze.
The coast in the far distance is Wilson’s Promontory which we’ll explore in the next day or 2.
The local town of Foster is very cute and spotlessly clean, catering for your every (basic) need. Very sleepy on a Sat afternoon as almost everything is closed except the supermarket, launderette 👏 and numerous take always.
It’s very unlike Sue to keep out of the heat, but Even she retreated back to the hotel ASAP with our freshly cleaned clothes, grateful for once for the pesky A/C. Good to drive the car though 😜
Sun 7th Jan
Wilson’s Promontory National Park covers about 500sq km. At the end of the ‘Prom’ at the mouth of the Tidal river is South Point, the Southernmost Tip of Mainland Australia. So of course that’s where we headed.
Glennie Lookout gave us our first glimpse of the spectacular view
Another 20 mins and we’d reached the south point – we headed for Norman beach, not to sunbathe as it was blinking chilly at 19, mad compared to 42 at the peak yesterday. But what a spectacle we found.
The large coloured rocks looked interesting so we headed towards them, only to find a whole other area of beach behind the main one, only there because the tide was out of course, but it provided a perfect family fun area with shallow pools, safe sand for bike rides and many other games.
Turning to walk back, look what we saw
I did get a video of this too, but as usual it’s not uploading grrrr.
I did post on FBook though so you may see it there. 
How lucky were we, that a lady near us spotted it and alerted her children otherwise we’d have missed it 👏👏
Outside the prom we headed to Waratah, not to watch rugby but to see the beach & find a winery. One beach a day was enough for Gav, but Sue ventured down of course
Everyone else must’ve had the same idea as Gavin ………
We’d heard about another winery, Lucinda’s at Leongatha .
Her husband provided us with a super tasting session followed by a perfect pizza for Sue and a Cheese Plate for Gavin. A fab place, full of families enjoying time together and similar fayre to ours.
Our hosts had been waxing lyrical about Agnes falls, Gavin felt they’d be disappointing due to the lack of rain, but no, they were def worth the trip.
Another early is night ahead, watching an old movie before heading to our next stopover at the Yarra Valley Lodge for some golf and probably another winery or two.
Monday 8th Jan
Only a short journey today, but we wanted to do quite a bit so onwards and upwards
First stop at Soumah Winery, Rosie Hunters favourite, a little tasting and we came away agreeing with Rosie that their Savarro is their best and very nice indeed.
We were just thinking about lunch there when a whole bus load arrived, so we decided to go to Rochford’s just down the road instead
This is seemingly the Yarra Valley’s largest winery and hosts music concerts on a regular basis. Next month Robbie Williams is playing-we Both would have loved to see him!!!
A bit further down the road was the Sanctuary at Healesville – that’s an apt placename isn’t it 😜
We’d both, but especially Gavin, been disappointed not to have seen a Koala yet (that hadn’t been a road casualty!) so we went to the sanctuary. What a treat.
We saw a few Emu’s who looked a bit crazy. Sue thinks Rod Hull’s act wasn’t so far from the truth that night on Parky!!!
Great little place with many more animals in a really natural environment, but we had a Tee time to make so couldn’t see too much else there.
Arriving at the Yarra Valley Lodge we had high hopes, despite the fact that it’d taken them 3 days to actually answer the phone to book our golf????
Slightly complicated process to actually play, but we just accepted it and moved on.
The course was designed by Jack Nicklaus and has some really nice elements but unfortunately it was very dry, with loads of Duck & Kangaroo poo to be avoided. Swarms of flies also bothered us. Perhaps the two are related? Any excuse for not playing well you might think-but no, seriously bothersome swarms of flies – yuk
Cute Kangaroos, but we’ve seen so many we don’t even take pics. – well not many anyway 😜
One or two super houses too.
We literally had the course to ourselves, NOBODY else at all was playing – true Millionaires golf.
Not surprisingly, the bar and pro shop were closed when we came in, not to worry we’ll go to the hotel bar Gav says.
Not a bit of it, the place is obviously struggling, we have never experienced such chaos. Gavin describes it as the lunatics running the asylum in an episode of faulty towers. We should have known when we couldn’t get them to answer the phone for 3 days. Luckily, the room is lovely and we have plenty of BYO food and drink so we didn’t give them any more opportunities to let us down.
Nice evening light over the basking kangaroos outside our room, a couple of them were boxing but were out of sight before Sue got there for a pic 😳
Tuesday 9th Jan
Melbourne’s only 45 mins from here, so having escaped the asylum we were on our way.
Melbourne In almost 6000 KLM’s and over 6 weeks on the road, we haven’t had a traffic jam, until we entered M. No more than we experience everyday going through Caversham though so not a biggie.
Even though we arrived at our hotel just after 11am expecting to just drop our luggage and the car, they found a SUPERB room available now – fantastic fortune.
Gavin had spotted the Queen Victoria market only a block away from us – so he popped out to explore while Sue did a few chores.
Chores sorted, then we were out exploring together.
Melbourne has the largest tram network in the world apparently, and as the free tram stopped 50 mtrs away we’d have been mad not to give it a go. 20 mins later we boarded the route 35 with a view to seeing the city, having a quick bite and going to the Immigration museum.
As you can see it was all a bit one sided, so we got out and walked across the bridge to the Southbank
Hope to see later whether the bridge adornments light up?
Lovely light lunch at The Left Bank – on the Southbank. Sue went 88 floors up (by lift in 38 secs) to the Eureka Skydeck for a birds eye view 🦉
The Rod Laver arena is towards the top of the pic, we have tickets to The Tennis there next week 👏.
We took a pleasant stroll along the Southbank admiring the architecture and the activities.
Across the road to the Immigration Museum, QI but we’ve seen better, we felt.
Nice touch though, was a wishing tree
All the usual things you’d expect decent people with a globally responsible attitude to wish for, but these 2 made Sue chuckle.
I wish that Eloise will be in my class next year 🤣
I wish that everybody would be happy and I get a Ferrari for my Birthday 🤣🤣
We decided the free tram was a bit busy & quite slow so we walked back, and on the way spotted where we’re meeting Rosieand Dave this evening 🥂
Just back from a great evening with Rosie n Dave, catching up on a few years !!!! Talking of our travels, their Oz life, our families ❤️, their wedding 2019. Delicious Peruvian food at Pastuso.
Seems like Sue was sitting on a lower chair than everybody else?
Looking forward to catching up again when we join you for the tennis next week when we’re back from Tasmania.
Around the World in 80 Stays 