New South Wales 2006

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Eating fish and chips and adjusting to a new time zone!

After a long overnight flight from Buenos Aires we arrive in Sydney at 0800 hours-but it was midnight when we left and it still felt like yesterday!

South America is 4 hours behind GMT and Australia is 10 hours ahead-it took us a week to adjust!

Now we had plenty of time to re discover the delights of this great city!

We hopped on and off the ferry boats and visited Watson's Bay and took a trip up the river to Parameter.

While waiting for the ferry to Manly Jim had to share his fish and chips with the birds at Circular Quay!

We also tasted the famous Aussie pies and peas from that famous stall.

Exploring Sydney harbour, Manley and Bondi beach!

Then we enjoyed a brisk walk along the tree lined promenade at Manley beside the Pacific ocean.

The Sydney bus took us through the northern suburbs to Bondi beach where we watched the skate boarders and surfers.

We just had to visit Patrick Wharf in Darling Harbour to check that the car ferry Tarango had arrived from Panama.

Sure enough there it was tide up at the wharf and our motor home was parked on the quay!

What a relief!

These locals entertained the visitors to some lovely music.

Lots do do in this big city and even though it was a little colder than usual we enjoyed our stay.

Time to look around the museum of modern art and be bemused by the exhibits.

A craft show had a fantastic display of quilts and this was the Best in Show!

The Powerhouse Museum is a great place to spend a day.

We watched the working steam driven beam engine built in 1785 being brought up to steam.

It would take over a week to clear customs even though we had approval for the temporary import of the vehicle.

Then it had to go by truck to be cleaned and released from quarantine!

At last we got control of our motor home and it was great to be driving on the left again after 2 years on the wrong side of the road!

We followed the coast south to a great place just north of Wollongong and spent midwinter's day right beside a lovely beach at Corrimal.

So we settled down to do some much needed cleaning.

Jim checked the vehicle and put the South America stickers on the rear doors.

Remember that table we bought in Victoria in 1998-well it has arrived back in Oz having been around the world!

It was almost like coming home after all that travelling in South America and we realised just how much we had missed the convenience of our old bus!

We had some unusual visitors keeping an eye on us.

The Australian Four Day Enduro at Mogo.

We drove further south down the coast to the small historic gold mining town of Mogo where the start area for the A4DE was at the Eurobadalla Fire training facility.

Walking around the pits we were soon chatting to old friends, riders and mechanics and getting the information about the event.

These two lovely people we have met all over the world-Laurie and Judy.

Another couple we meet all over the place are Jeni and Geoff Ballard. They now support some excellent riders and had an impressive pit.

Son Josh was riding in his first 4 day and would not have an easy event.

Riding in the bush and the cold!!!

We also got a chance to talk with World Enduro Champions Shane Watts and Juha Salminen who are both currently riding in the USA.

Juha is also the GNCC champion and he was out on the new KTM 250 4T and will be returning to the WEC next year in the E1 class.

Rumour has it David Knight will take his place in the USA.

Early next morning we were on duty in the work area-it was so cold a portable gas fire was needed to keep the marshals warm!

Not much was happening and soon all the riders had started and off we went into the forests to the special tests.

The weather was perfect for an enduro - but the mornings were cold and frosty and the bike seats were covered in ICE!

We had jobs to do each day and Jim got a chance to do some route marking but he avoided the gum trees!

The sun was shining as everyone gathered at the Moruya horse race track for the final MX races.

Master class leader Geoff Ballard won his race and showed he has lost non of his skills!

At last the race everyone wanted to see as Watty screamed around in the lead to win the 2T race.

Young Josh Strang won the big 2T class.

Next Salminen gave a perfect demonstration of smooth fast riding to win the event overall.

He has a 111 shirt to celebrate KTM winning all three classes in the World Champioship.

But the crowd wanted to see the home riders and they were not disappointed when AJ Roberts on the big Yamaha came from behind to win his class and be the best Aussie rider.

This UK rider Tim Walker had just ridden around Oz-he is from Stourbridge.

There were a lot of Kiwi riders over from New Zealand and they had a very relaxed pit!

Sean Clark was out on a Suzuki and he is the clerk of the course for the ISDE at Lake Tapou in November.

Jim managed to get some info from him and we are looking forward to meeting everyone again when we get to NZ.

Going north to find some warmer weather!

Further north we stayed beside lake Munmorah at Budgewoi where the sunsets were great.

HMAS Albatross is home to the Naval air museum where we just had to stop for a look at all the planes.

We also found a model airplane display along the way and stopped for lunch!

Another Mosquito.

Next stop was at Nasiac where the Kenelley family have a great collection of motorcycles and memorabilia at the National Motorcycle Museum.

Jim found an old Velocette MOV

Dot remembers learning to drive on a bike just like this-a long time ago!

This is a very rare Kelinworth machine.

Australia is a multi cultural place as shown by the many different buildings.

The Buddhist Nan Tien Temple near the huge steel works at Woolangong was a haven of peace.

Another Liverpool and British spare parts!

On the way north around Sydney we passed a sign to a familiar city!

This parts place had the parts we needed for our clutch in stock!

The signs in Oz are great-no mistaking what these places sell!

Then we visited the World Heritage rainforest reserve at Iluka-

awesome place.

The beautiful beach was littered with huge rocks which have the remains of trees embedded in them.

While in Sydney we had seen one of the rare Woolemi pine trees that were only rediscovered a few years ago!

There are many blow holes around the coast but this one at Kiamma was not blowing when we stopped.

The whales pass by this way on the annual migration but none were about that day!

Now we go to the most easterly point and into Queensland and visit the Outback and dodge the kangaroos!.

Red soil - QANTAS - road trains.

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