Road Trip, Day Four, Lakes Entrance (Mallacoota to Metung)

Woke up and rang my mum. Had a shower (about time!). It was great to feel clean again.
Mallacoota was gorgeous - a bright sunny morning and lovely views of the ocean.

Spoke to an old hippy who was walking to Secret Beach. We had already driven there but it was hard to get down to the beach so didn't bother. We went to Quarry beach instead. It was lovely and secluded. We saw some odd jumping bugs. Had a cup of tea and spoke to an old hippy woman called Alice. She had a cute dog. Claire made a Currawong (sort of crow like bird) friend who ate eggs out of her hands.

We drove on and took the misleading 'tourist drive' to a place called Marlo. Misleading because it was just a longer route to Marlo and not very pretty - just high sided scrub land really.

Got to Marlo and walked down the jetty of the huge lake. The area we were in was made up of these huge coastal lakes.

Drove to a little market town called Orbost and went to a cafe to charge up phone and camera. I had a cream tea, Claire had gnocchi except it was not gnocchi. It was a pasta dish with watery sauce and mushrooms. It was vile! Decided that Orbost was rubbish!

Headed down to Lakes Entrance which had loads of shops and restaurants but it was a bit touristy and not very pretty. Asked at the tourist information place where was cheap to camp and got directions to the council site but it was rough as hell and not cheap!

Decided that Lakes Entrance sucked too so drove even further on. Found a pretty place next to a lake to park up. The place was called Metung. We had a few glasses of wine, got a bit tipsy and fell asleep.

British Sea Power mug of course.

Murdoch at Quarry Beach.

Arty shot of the coastline.

Signs that mean 'Keep 'em peeled!'

Ninety-mile beach.

Road Trip, Day Three, Baby Wombats (Moruya to Mallacootta)

Woke up early and drove off with Claire still asleep :)

Drove to Narooma and had a walk around. Went whale watching but didn't see any whales. Did see a massive horrible Pelican though which looked like some sort of evil dinosaur.

Drove on down the coast and got pulled over by a policeman. I had to count to five or something but I was confused. When I had finished he said "Jeez, that's bright hair!" which confused me even more until I realised he was talking to Claire. Told him we were off to Merimbula. He said "Oh Merimbula" in a completely different way which was funny.

Stopped off at a place called Potaroo Palace (Potaroo's are small weird marsupials). We got to walk around a field with kangeroos and emus in it. We fed them too! There was also koalas, lizards and swamp wallabees. The best thing though was the baby wombat called Eric. Claire got to stroke the little critter because it ran over to her.

Our destination for the night was Mallacoota but we underestimated how far it was and nearly ran out of petrol. The van was spluttering a bit and it started to rain so we got a bit worried we would have to walk miles through the bush to find some fuel. We crossed the border of New South Wales and Victoria so I sang Victoria by the Kinks.

Fortunately we made it to Mallacoota petrol station and asked where we could sleep. The lady in the petrol station said there was a place called Forjour. We couldn't find it (same old story!) but found another touring park place at about 8pm which looked nice so we just parked up. Great views of the sea and a very pretty place too. We walked to the boat ramp and spoke to some fisherman who were trimming their fish for dinner. There were about fifty massive pelicans there eating the scraps and they were evil too. Found the sign of the touring park and it was called 'Foreshore', not 'Forjour' - I blame the accent!

Had a few glasses of wine, some pasta and then bed.

Kangeroo with Joey.

Eric the baby wombat.

Road Trip , Day Two, Rainforests (Bombo Beach to Moruya)

Made some breakfasts in the back of the van and saw some Splendid Fairy Wrens (which are the cutest birds ever).

Drove to Minnamurra rainforest and bought an Australian bird book. Went walking through the forest and saw Lyra birds, Waterfalls, Strangling fig trees and lots of other foresty things.

Headed on to a place called Batemans Bay and did some food shopping.

Kept on driving to find a place called Moruya to sleep but couldn't find it anywhere and it was getting dark.
Saw a frog jumping across the road and had to ask some fishermen where the campsite was. They led the way in their car - very helpful!

Got a camp fire going (took ages!) and sat around it drinking wine. Claire made me kangeroo sausages and beans for dinner. It was very nice.

The campsite was in a forest near a little airfield so we had planes coming and going and they sounded really near.

Put fire out and hit the sack.

Claire under a massive strangling fig tree

Claire on a rope bridge. If I had a sword it'd be a Temple of Doom situation.

The Rainforest, it rained!

It took a while but we got it going eventually!

Road Trip, Day One, Murdoch (Sydney to Bombo Beach)

Picked up the Campervan (a Mitsubishi van with Murdoch from Gorrilaz painted on the side) and after getting used to the controls (like having a window that opened!!!) went off on our merry way down the East coast of Australia, destination - Melbourne (in about a weeks time).

Bought some relatively cheap petrol and stopped off at Coogee (about 4 kms into the 1400km drive :)

Had some fish and chips, watched a woman TV presenter doing a talk on birds and then drive on down the Pacific Highway to find our first place to sleep in the van. The van was cool! It had enough room to stretch out in even for me! The 'Wicked Campers' depot have a load of unwanted stuff left by other people after their road trips so we took full advantage and got various cans of food, duvets, pillows, foil, napkins and stuff.

We reached a place called Bombo Bay and decided that as it was getting dark, this would be the place to sleep. We had great views of the sea and it was nice and quiet and off the beaten track. There were a few freight trains that rattled through in the night but it was very quiet otherwise.

Was knackered so fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Our home for the next week or so.

Coogee Beach

London - Tokyo

Claire's make up made it down to London in time! Got the bus to the massive Terminal 5 and found the right counter to go to. Tried to blag an upgrade but it was a fully booked flight and we were stuck with our crap seats :(

Met my mum and dad (thanks for coming down to see us off!) at Carluccios and had some olives and coffees and then it was time for some more emotional goodbyes. Wave one more goodbye before going through to security and then we were all alone.

Claire was buzzing around like a blue arsed fly whilst we went around the shops trying to find a place with Yen.
The time came to fly and as we went through the guy says 'oooh you've been upgraded'. SWEEEEEET!

Got on the plane and our seats were dead posh. Loads of leg room, massive headphones, touch screens, bar menu, free food and drinks all the way. Luxury. Took off on time and waved by to my mum and dad and then Heathrow, London, UK, Europe....

Got over Russia and thought it was a good time to pay a visit, so I walked through the commoners in Economy and grinned.

Didn't sleep all the way to Tokyo and drank a fair bit so we were a little confused on arrival into Narita international. Somehow found out that the cheapest way into Tokyo centre was a local train service that took two hours. Lots of pointing and miming later we bought the right tickets and found the platform. The signs on the platform said that lots of stations are shut due to APPROACHING TYPHOON. What the funk?

Got on the train and off we went. The train map was rubbish and each station we stopped at caused a bit of panic as they were not on the map we had. Decided to stick with it and see where we ended up. There were two little Japanese primary school girls in sailor outfits. Probably dressed for the imminent typhoon. One of the stations we stopped at was getting the full pelt of the typhoon - never seen anything like it! There were some people getting very wet. Soggy Nintendos and Pokemon all round.

Eventually we make it to Shinjuku and walk to our hotel, or so we had thought. It was the right name but the wrong place. Grrrr. Manage to print off some more directions and grab a taxi (because it's a rather big place and it's pissing it down) to our actual hotel about half a mile away. It was very hard to ask the driver how much it would be!

Got in the hotel and it was pretty cool - we were on a very high floor! It was a bit Typhoony outside so we decided to go for a walk. The umbrellas lasted all of ten seconds and we got drenched in the Typhoon. Ended up in a cafe next to our hotel and had a bottomless coffee and miso soup. 8 or 9 coffees later we went back to the hotel room and accidentally fell asleep, despite all of the caffeine. Woke up at 4am and the worst Typhoon had passed so we decided to go out on the town.

Found a cool little bar and had some beers, then found a place for some noodles and tempura and then we wandered around til first light and then went to bed again. Jet lag? Whatever.

Leeds to London

Finished clearing out the house and said goodbye to Claire's family.
Got on the train and after ten minutes Claire realises that during the big clear out she has accidentally thrown out her entire make-up bag with all her new and expensive stuff in it! A few phone calls to her mum though and the bag is back in safe hands and just needs to get down to London overnight.

Arrive at King's Cross, catch the tube to Terminal 5, and second panic hits us - where is our hotel confirmation email! I start to wonder if I actually clicked 'Submit' when booking the hotel.

We get the bus to the hotel and approach the reception with fingers crossed. It's all booked and we are in! Good job as the hotel is fully booked and the nearest one to it is the massively over priced Hilton.

Grab some pizza and chips, watch some TV, watch the enormous planes flying over the hotel and get an early night before the big day.