Wollongong–Corrimal Beach

Well, its been a while but as i am in between jobs at the moment we have been careful with our funds. As soon as i knew i had been offered a new role with a new employer we started planning our next getaway.

We decided we wanted to go “Glamping” this trip and leave the van at home so that's what we did. Booking a cabin at the Corrimal Beach tourist park we left Melbourne for our next mini adventure with the car zipping along minus the tag-a-long.

Why Wollongong? No reason, we had not stayed there before and most of Sydney’s north side beaches were booked out with school holidays.

As we wanted to take our time somewhat we decided to stay overnight in Albury, first stopping in Euroa for morning tea before finding a great little hotel, the Best Western Meramie motor inn, near the main street, which allowed us to walk the township, as well as to and from dinner at the Albury Commercial Club.

After a good nights sleep we were back in the car and on our way, discovering to our disappointment that the bypass of Holbrook is now complete and we did not pass the submarine as we normally do. The trip into Wollongong was mostly uneventful except for when we walked into a random bakery in Yass to find Maree and Peter there having morning tea. Seems Yass is not that far a drive from Canberra.

As mentioned, our home for the next 5 days was to be the Corrimal Beach tourist park, where we had a massive 3 bedroom cabin with a BBQ on the balcony, right next to the dunes and the beach. Very easy for me to get to for my morning walks and coffee whilst the girls slept in.One of the reasons for our choice of Sydney and Wollongong was that Sara wanted to visit Manly and the Northern Beaches (Palm Beach) however most of the accommodation around them was booked. Due to fires in the area the northern beaches ended up being scratched but Manly was still a destination we could reach. As we always do in Sydney, the public transport system was utilised to make the trip. It was actually a great train ride from Corrimal to Circular Quay, before boarding the ferry for Manly. It beats driving any day.

We also managed to find time to explore other beaches in the area including the Wollongong north beach. There is a great lookout on the heads and petrified wood can be found on the beach itself. The kids had a great time fossicking at the waters edge.

We had a free day so we also decided to visit Symbio Zoo, a wildlife park on the south side of Sydney. It was not as good as the Mogo Zoo however they are doing renovations so i am sure it would be worth visiting again in the future. The kids enjoyed it and they had some great Tigers

The trip home, after a great week away, was via Eden. We had planned to stop for a few days but the weather had turned very windy so we stayed here overnight and headed home via the coast.

Xmas 2012– Oberon

Oberon, a great little town on the west side of the Blue Mountains, near Sydney. We chose this town due to its proximity to the Jenolan Caves and the Blue mountains town of Katoomba, and its associated tourist attractions, the Scenic World and the Three Sisters.

After setting ourselves up in a great site and having a well earned rest, due to the great roads we seem attracted to this trip, we planned our next two days. For the first day, a day of high fire danger, we had chosen a trip to the Jenolan Caves. Prior to heading out though we made sure to have a look at the NSW Rural Fire service website to ensure there were no local fire risks. We also packed plenty of water.

The Caves were great, and we ended up on one of the longer tours, with around 900 steps. The caves proved to be cool relief as well with an average temperature of 15deg. It was a big shock then when we came back into the light. As part of our tickets we also got to do a self guided tour of a more outdoors style cave.  On our walk back to the car we also managed to disturb various lizards, some of which waited while i took some photos…

After a great day at Jenolan caves we returned to the caravan park for an afternoon rest and an evening walk back into town, where i snapped this shot of the towns original Cinema building the Malachi Gilmore Hall, its looks great but is no longer in operation it seems.

Day two had us driving out to Katoomba and Scenic World where we rode all the attractions.

After Scenic World we headed back into Katoomba to see the Three Sister from another vantage point, along with all the other tourists.

After all this it was back to the van to begin packing, ready for the trip home.