After a relaxing couple of months in our old stomping ground of Canberra, we loaded up the Tardis with our "mobile" possessions and hit the road for travels northwards. It was great to spend some time in Canberra catching up with old friends and family.
A stopover in Sydney for a couple of days saw us visiting our Sydney based families and "doing stuff".
We visited the Harry Potter Exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum. It was a great display of memorabilia from the Harry Potter movies together with some audience participation. The delight on young children's faces as they were "sorted" into their houses by the Sorting Hat, which of course took their preferences into account so no-one was disappointed. It was interesting to see the costumes - the stars began as children and finished 7 years later as young adults - and other props - squealing mandrakes, a quidditch set and various wands and flying brooms. Of course no visit to the shop was complete without some purchases of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, including dirt, earthworm, soap and earwax flavours! All in all an entertaining couple of hours.
We left Sydney on Wednesday 15th February 2012. It was overcast, hot and humid. Pretty much a normal Sydney summer day.
On our many trips north from Newcastle on the Pacific Highway we had driven past the Hunter Region Botanical Gardens. This time we stopped for a look. The gardens have many sculptures and focal points. There are gardens of rainforests, palms, rare plants, succulents, orchids and bromeliads as well as native bushland. With well maintained paths. It's all run and maintained by volunteers.
They also have mosquitoes as big as aeroplanes!
After a night at Forster in the Myall Lakes region of NSW, we proceeded north to Bellingen. The rain cleared and we've got perfect weather - about 28C and bright sunshine.
Imagine Robert's surprise to be greeted by a large green tree frog which was sharing our bathroom!
Friday 17th and we're heading for Cabarita Beach near the New South Wales/Queensland border. We stopped near Casino for a picnic lunch in a rest area inhabited by several goannas. These lace monitors were about 1 metre long and lumbered around the campsite. They obviously know that it's a good place for dinner and several overnight campers arrived while we were there. The photo doesn't really do them justice. The markings were black and bright orange. Magnificent animals.
Cabarita Beach is south of Tweed Heads and is about 30km south of the NSW/Queensland border. We'll be here for at least 2 weeks.
No comments:
Post a Comment