…and farewell from the mouse

 

We’ll miss this little companion, he’s been with us all the way quietly in the background.

We hope that his owner has enjoyed this trip – I believe he’s off to Egypt at the weekend too – so if you want to continue following the adventures of Twitchy the Mouse you can find him on Facebook – Twitchy Robins – ask to be a friend, I’m sure he will be happy to accept you!

I need some sleep - Hong Kong is too mad for me!

I thought the ferry was a bit bumpy!

That's better - this is our hotel on Lantau Island

This is the view from our hotel window

Hee hee! I can't read, I'm only a mouse!

This is a dragon boat - do you think they need a crew member?

And now the end is near …..

Go on, hum along, you know you want to!

We’ve left the bustle of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon behind and retreated to Lantau Island.  We’ve been coming here to the island for 8 years now and love the peacefulness and the mix of east and west.

The hinterland of the village of Mui Wu is traffic free – but you need to beware of cyclists sneaking up on you from behind and dinging their bells to get you to move to one side and let them pass.

Not up here, of course, we were very high up when we took this photo and the only people around were, well, shall we say ‘sleeping’?

The very steep hillside behind the village is literally full of these shrines,  Chinese people like their deceased to have a sea view when their lives are over and the higher and more inaccessible the shrine, the better!

We’re enjoying the peace here, the sea is just outside our bedroom window and laps at the shore quietly.

This is our last stop before our flight to the UK and onwards to France.  But there will be more to say about this trip, so don’t go away, folks.  We’ll be right back!

Hong Kong photocall

 

A shop in Kowloon - confusing, huh?

Crazy Kowloon

A little corner in Kowloon - lady tending the incense

Umm......

 

This madness was beginning to get to us today so we got on the Star Ferry ….

Iconic Star Ferry

… got ourselves another ferry …

Leaving Kowloon behind

… past all the container ships (these are just a very, very few – there are hundreds all around the islands of Hong Kong)

Containing what, we wondered...

… and over to Lamma Island where cars are prohibited

Welcome to Lamma

Fishing huts on Lamma

Lamma bicycle park

The streets are so narrow that even the one ambulance is tiny (the fire engine was the same size too!)

It still goes 'Nee-naw, nee-naw'

After a spot of lunch and a quiet walk we ferried back to Hong Kong Island

My friend used to live in the middle of the three round blocks!

HK Island - Western side

Ooops - a bit of swell made the boat lilt there!

We found this boat in residence:

Rainbow Warrier

Then we took the Ding-ding back to our hotel.

Loving Hong Kong trams

Return to Hong Kong

Well here we are again and I have to say we’re finding it very noisy.

You’d think that we would find Hong Kong noisy after the wilds of France and we do, but we’re used to it after many visits, this time it seems much noisier.  Is that because we’ve spent so long in amongst more people that we normally see in France?  It could be.

In Australia we looked mostly for the small towns, the countryside and the coast.  We stayed on quiet campsites which were full of very quiet people.  It seems to us that Australians end their day much earlier than Europeans.  It gets dark early, even in their summer it was dark by 7.30 so on campsites which in a French summer would be buzzing with people cooking and chatting until at least 10 pm,  everyone was cooked, washed up and tucked away in their caravan playing a quick game of Scrabble before bed at 9!

Sydney was bustling, sure, but nothing like this place.

Hong Kong never stops.  I can vouch for that having slept very little last night.  There are people everywhere. Market traders are just packing up at 8pm having started at 8am, street cleaners are hosing down the dozens of little market streets (noisily of course and it takes a team of about 8 of them).  Office workers (mostly Europeans) are spending the evening in the bars of SoHo, spilling out on to the streets and chatting noisily – the bars themselves are pumping out loud music.  The trams are packed with people going home from work, hundreds are still walking home.  It just seems so noisy!

The mornings are bustling in this district with the shop keepers stocking up with deliveries of yet more dried fish, vegetables and nuts – where does it all go?  We watched a tiny building opposite our hotel being filled with boxes and boxes of dried fish – who eats it all?  We’re completely amazed.

Well we have one more full day on Hong Kong Island before retreating to our favourite quiet island, Lantau for a few days – there the only noise will come from the bicycle bells ringing – no traffic allowed in that area at all.

Farewell to Sydney

Our last two days in Sydney have been busy with sightseeing.  Luckily for us the temperature plummeted from the weekend’s 32 to a more sightseeing-suitable 23.

Yesterday we went to Darling Harbour region and found a beautiful Chinese Garden here are a fantastic collection of bonsai – I know at least one of you will appreciate this one:

The garden is set around beautiful lakes with koi carp and waterlilies:

I was particularly taken with this beautiful statue of a sleeping boy Buddha:

We then walked around the harbour itself and stopped for lunch and a bit of people watching before following the harbour towards the Maritime Museum.

We continued across Pyrmont bridge which is the world’s oldest electrically operated swing bridge and used to be a toll bridge for people, cattle and pigs!

We then paid a visit to Hyde Park (yes, really) where we found some chaps having a game of chess:

Then my camera battery ran out along with my energy so we returned to base for the evening.

Today was a big day in Sydney.  The two greatest ocean liners were in town at the same time. The Queen Elizabeth looked bigger than both the Opera House and the bridge.

The Queen Mary 2 was way over the other side of Wooloomooloo (I still love that name) so we walked through the pouring rain in the Royal Botanical Gardens to get a couple of snaps (I do hope you all appreciate that it was pouring with rain and we only went there to take photos for you! )

And so we say farewell to Sydney, probably with a few tears tomorrow morning.  We’ve had a super time in Australia, many highlights and despite the van troubles, not so many lows.

Time to start planning the next one which we hope will include a trip to Port Douglas way up north in Queensland.

IF the weather is kind that year!

Cuddling koalas

I may have bored a few of you with my desire to cuddle a koala before we left home.  I’m very pleased to say that I achieved that yesterday.

We drove up to northern Sydney to collect the suitcase we had left with friends – it contained all our ‘medium warm’ clothes for Hong Kong which were surplus to requirements in the campervan.  While I was looking for directions on Googlemaps, I noticed that nearby was a koala sanctuary.  I persuaded (and it didn’t take much, to be honest) Jacqui to take us there after we’d collected the bag.

The sanctuary was set up in the 1920s and opened in the 1930s and has been a family run concern ever since.  It is a small sanctuary with animals other than koalas there too.

Wallabies

Wombat

Kangaroo

Cockatoo who kept saying 'Can I have a cracker?'

Emu

 

there were also beautiful flying foxes which, for the sensibility of my sister who is scared of bats, I won’t include here.  And finally….

 

Gorgeous koala

Another lovely koala

My new friend, Shaun the koala - he's very cuddly!

 

I surprised myself by getting quite emotional to be so close to one of these beautiful, gentle creatures, and so glad to have seen the others, even if they were in a sanctuary.  At least here the kangaroos were tame enough to be hand fed and the koalas cuddled.

 

Sydney and south

First I’ll update you on the van news.

We were expecting a bit of a tussle when we returned it.  When we checked the first van out there was a very VERY thorough inspection of the van, every dent, chip and scratch and every item of the inventory was checked carefully – with my new French friend.

After we collected the second van the inspection was a little less thorough and I had to sign the inventory list – desperate to get away and on with our holiday.

‘Are you sure there’s a tent in there?’  I asked ‘I didn’t see one’

She assured me there was a tent so I signed.  Closer inspection on the day we were due to return the van showed that the ‘tent’ was a fourth sleeping bag.  We collected my cousin, Jacqui’s, door key and dumped off all our belongings before we returned the van.

‘Was everything OK with the van’ the chap at the hire centre waved me a red flag and like a bull I charged.  He raised an eyebrow.

‘What can we do to put that right?  I’ll refund you two days hire and the cost of the ice you needed for the esky, would that be OK?’

What, no argument?

It turned out that this pleasant chap was the owner of the company – well, he had to be nice to us, didn’t he?  We also have the offer of an upgrade to a larger van should we return.  Lovely.  Result!

So now we are staying with Jacqui and her partner Kevin, Millie Vanilli the dog and Sunny the budgie.  Yesterday they took us on a drive south of Sydney through the Royal National Park and along the Grand Pacific Highway – take a look at this:

Grand Pacific Drive

We drove on down to Kiama, a pretty little town with a rather spectacular geological feature

Kiama blowhole

As seen on www.kiama.com.au

Unfortunately it wasn’t working quite this well for us but we still enjoyed the sight of it

Kiama damp squib!

Today we are finally going to see some koalas.  Yes definitely.  The only sure way we can is by going to a koala sanctuary.  Can’t wait

Photo gallery

Just some photos today to do a bit of  a catch up

 

Wynnum mangrove walk, QLD

Frill-necked lizard at Yamba

Yamba marina

Nambucca Heads – a beautiful spot for lunch

From Forster to Tuncurry

No comment – lovely place!

Birubi Point, Anna Bay

Stockton sand dunes 32km long!

Beautiful Pacific Ocean at Anna Bay

Yamba to Bonny Hills to Port Stephens

Sorry, still no photos, I need a better internet connection

 

After our wet evening in Yamba we pushed on south stopping briefly for lunch at Nambucca Heads, another beautiful, quiet spot. This time on the Nambucca River and just a stone’s throw from the Pacific Ocean.  We decided it was too early to stop for the day and pushed on back to Bonny Hill, where we had spent our second camping evening.  It wasn’t quite as hot as last time, but at least it had stopped raining (actually it was probably still 26 degrees as we pulled up).  We settled in for the evening and did some washing too, hoping it would dry before morning.

We had to buy ice for the van since the esky didn’t have any freezer blocks with it.  The problem is that ice comes in 5 kilogram bags which completely fills the esky before you even start to think about putting anything else in it!  I split the ice in two and put some in the useless fridge.  We had a swim before dark and reflected on the trip so far.

We are considering putting in a complaint to the Australian Tourist Board for false information. This is based on the fact that we have hardly seen any of the wildlife Australia is famous for – until today when we finally did spot some groups of kangaroos grazing, so it seemed, in someone’s front garden!  Unfortunately we were bombing down the Pacific Highway at the time and couldn’t stop for a Kodak moment.

We have passed numerous signs telling us to be considerate towards koalas, but have we seen one anywhere that we could be kind to? No we haven’t.  One possum did take us by surprise the other evening in Noosa when it climbed along the fence beside our pitch in the near-dark, tiptoed across a fence and along the balcony of the nearby apartments.  Again – no photo as it was too dark.  We also saw one at Bonny Hills, a different type to the previous as it didn’t have a white tipped tail.  We haven’t seen an emu either, or a Tasmanian devil, although I have been reliably informed that we wouldn’t want to see one of those.  We’ve seen a lot of birdlife, pelicans, ibis, cranes, kookaburras and even plovers which we were told are nasty things which squirt poison at you from their claws (very friendly!) and the birdsong has been amazing.  Australian crows are very sad birds, their cry, unlike the ‘caw, caw, caw’ we’re used to is a very doleful ‘ohh, ohh, ohhhhhh’ with a very disappointed sound on the last ‘ohhhhh’.  Luckily we’ve not seen any nasty spiders or snakes (unless you count a very large black and yellow squashed one) neither have we come across the vicious creature that lives in the seashell as mentioned in my first post.

We have loved the flora, lots of fleshy leafed shrubs, palms, beautiful flowers – none of which I can name, which will disappoint at least one of my readers (sorry, Sue) and I haven’t been able to take photos which really do them justice – I’ve done my best though and I hope you enjoy what you see when I can eventually load some decent photos.

From Bonny Hills we decided to head south and find a ‘two-nighter’.  We had an area ear-marked and three campsites to choose from which we found in the couple of campsite books we had picked up.  We deviated from our journey to an area called ‘The Lakes’ which comprise of several very large lakes, the largest being Lake Myall.  We stopped off in a place called Forster for a leg-stretch and a photo opportunity for some more pelicans and looking directly across the river at the twin town of Tuncurry.  The Lakes National Parks, of which there are several also, is a stunning area, almost alpine in parts, very pretty and very remote.

We then drove down to the beautifully named village of Lemon Tree Passage!  This village, according to one of our guide books is ‘famous’.  Famous quite for what we couldn’t tell as it was one of the quietest little places we have come across.  It is at the end of a 22km spit of land jutting into the area known as Port Stephens and the only way back was the way we came in.

We crossed off campsite number 1 as being too remote – remote even from Lemon Tree Passage! – an after stopping there for a quiet lunch, we made off for Nelson Bay the largest town in the area.  On the way we passed campsite possibilities 2 and 3, rejecting those too for their remoteness, and hastily searched out the Nelson Bay Tourist Information Office which had a few more suggestions in the vicinity.  We selected a place called Anna Bay as a possibility as there were 3 campsites there so we thought one of them at least would be suitable.  The first two were well out of the village although nicely placed beside a sandy beach.  However, with the third we struck lucky.  We passed the site and drove on down a small lane to the biggest beach we have seen.  32kms of sand dune and remoteness, beautiful views along the coast and the surf of the Pacific.

We went back to check the site out.

‘All our powered pitches have en suite accommodation’ we were told, which immediately made me wonder how much.

‘$35 a night for those’.   Well, that’s certainly not the most expensive we’ve found on our journey (current exchange rate about £21.00).

So for our last two nights in the van we have a huge emplacement – unfortunately without shade but we can find that by sitting in the shadow of our en suite!

The beach is lovely for just walking, wave jumping and watching the sea, and there are shops and a Thai restaurant just 5 minutes walk away.

We will be very sorry to give back the van tomorrow, despite the problems we’ve had.  We have grown very fond of this nomadic lifestyle.  Anyone got a camper van for sale?

 

Brisbane to Yamba

(Apologies for no pictures on this update due to time restriction on the connection today). We have just spent a very happy weekend with both of my cousins. They have lived on the other side of the world to me for a very long time now and none of us could remember the last time we were together, us three, for any quality chats.

The weekend was punctuated with ‘Do you remember?’s

‘Do you remember when you took me to see the Rolling Stones at Streatham Odeon?’ I asked.

‘No! Did we really take you too!?’ they cried – ‘We used to take you to see all the Elvis films when they came out!’

Oh, how we laughed. Poor Jon and poor Alan, they had a lot to put up with this weekend. We had seen Elaine just last summer when she came to visit us in France but Diana moved to Australia just after Jon and I married in 1974, so there was an awful lot we had missed about each others’ lives, children growing up, houses we have lived in. She and her husband had been to visit us when we lived on the North Downs in Surrey in the last-but-one house back in the mid-1980s but that was the last time we saw her for any length of time.

They looked after us well, these lovely sisters and we were sorry to leave them on Monday morning to head back south towards Sydney. We had ear-marked a couple of suggestions for stopping places after discussing with Alan places that he liked and recommended. He spends many weeks every year trolling up and down the Pacific Highway between Sydney and Brisbane so was able to make a few suggestions – places we didn’t call in at on the way north.

We started off back at Byron Bay which, just an hour or so later in the day than we had visited it before it was quite different. A back-packers favourite, they obviously are late risers and the town was heaps busier at lunch time than it had been mid-morning 10 days or so earlier. We stopped for a quick lunch from a bakery which we ate in the shade and a whizz around the shops before heading to Yamba a small village on the coast which we had thought might make a ‘two-nighter’ on the way south.

As we approached Yamba the heavens opened and it just threw it down. We checked in at a campsite in the middle of the town very near shops and restaurants and it was just drizzling so we decided to make a dash for it and get to the shops while we could.

Wrong. It was just waiting until we were far enough away from the van that it would be too far to run back to before throwing down buckets of water from the sky.

I don’t remember the last time I was that wet without going into the pool or the sea. My dress was clinging to me and my rain-jacket (we hadn’t been that stupid) was letting in water too. We ducked into a deli and bought some delicious treats to cheer ourselves up, then a bottle of wine to wash them down with. We noticed a Thai take-away restaurant on the way back and the decision was made for supper.

We enjoyed, from the safety of our van, the sight of others trying to erect their awnings, trailer tents and the like. There’s a very cheerful atmosphere on camp sites when things go slightly off plan and the worse the weather, the more people help each other out or smile and offer a glass of wine. Great fun. The Thai supper (it was only spitting when we went out again) was lovely, one of the best we’ve had, and we were cosy in our van as we ate it.

This morning it wasn’t raining so we wandered into the shopping area and bought ourselves breakfast (remember, no fridge = no milk = no brekkie!). We had a delicious croissant which was served not only with jam but with whipped cream, just like a Devonshire cream tea! Wonderful for the tastebuds, bad for the hips. We did get a chance to look around Yamba before we left, and it seemed like a very nice place. We were tempted to go for a second night but thought we’d head south while the weather was still looking a bit iffy and then we’d have a rest later on for a couple of nights when, hopefully, the rain will have passed through.

I promise photos to follow.