The Expedition

Recently I went on a holiday for the first time in 15 years.  Since I have rarely been outside of South Australia, I thought I would see as much of the country as money would allow.  My journey took me through Naracoorte, The Grampians, Melbourne, Mt Kosciusko National Park, Canberra, Sydney, New Castle and Bathurst.  I was hoping to see Brisbane but started running out of fuel money.

Below are a few pictures of what I like to call "The Expedition".  I took a lot of photos but found when I got home and developed the films, my camera was letting in light.  I was able to salvage half and the best of them are shown here.

Naracoorte.  

Spent 2 nights at a caravan park, mainly to make sure I had enough supplies for the next stage.

The Grampians.

Its here that I can relax for the first time in just over 3 years.  The views were spectacular and I would recommend you see it. This is where I really wanted to go, if I had to turn back and head home I would have been happy.  I spent 2 nights in the forest without seeing a single soul.

Melbourne.

Didn't take many pictures here, not much in Melbourne worth taking a photo of.  I did however walk from Victoria St to the Burke St Mall.  The funny part about it was the tram was barely keeping up with me.  Didn't care too much for their roads, I went through as much fuel getting out of Melbourne as I did getting to Albury/Wodonga.  Stayed 2 nights at a caravan park in Frankston.

Mt Kosciusko National Park.

The original plan was to go around the coast to Sydney.  After looking at my maps in my 2 man tent I decided that it would be boring and un-eventful.  So I left Melbourne after 2 days of rain and headed for Mt Kosciusko National Park via Albury/Wodonga.  The weather cleared up almost as soon as I crossed the border.  Stayed the night in the forest.  Would have stayed longer but it got down to 1 degree and was only getting colder.  Even The Grampians only ever got as low as 4 degrees.

Canberra.

I love this city.  Hardly any traffic (although it was Good Friday) and wide open spaces.  The hardest thing to grasp was that each suburb had 5-10Km's of bush land between them.  Traveling from suburb-suburb with no navigator was a little difficult.

Sydney.

Coming from Adelaide, I was a little overwhelmed by the size of Sydney.  All things considering, it was better than Melbourne.  Stayed at a caravan in Bargo (just south of Sydney) so I could get a fresh start at sight seeing in the morning.  Parked my car under the Sydney Harbour Bridge so I wouldn't lose it and walked around town for the day.

New Castle.

This was only meant to be a stop off point on my way to Brisbane, but after working out my finances, I decided to slowly make my way back home.  Brisbane would have left me stranded 300-400Km's away from home.

Bathurst.

Here I would stay for 2 nights.  Relaxing and reading my book (Four Past Midnight by Stephen King)  Had I got here a day earlier I may have been able to see some racing at Mt Panarama. Leaving here, I decided to go straight home, only stopping at a caravan park if needed.

All up the journey took me down nearly 3500Km's of some very fine roads and the car performed beautifully. I think the next expedition will be west.