Throw another steak on the barbie: Week 20: ROAD TRIP!

So sunday night I headed up to Illawong, near Sutherland in Sydney. I had an amazing BBQ evening meal on sunday! Steaks, sausages, potato bake and salad, oh this was the ultimate "home cooked" meal :). Monday morning I was treated to bacon and eggs on toast... YUM! I then had a chilled day at my friends epic house in Illawong, I chilled by the pool (trying out my underwater camera), did some CV stuff and watched a few movies.

Tuesday, after some troubles I was able to take my friends car. I got used to driving again, stalling many times and headed down the great pacific drive which goes from sydney to wollongong. It was so great getting back in the driving seat and the views from the road were great. Some great beaches and I stopped off at the famous Sea Cliff Bridge. This bridge curves out over the ocean around a headland, it was an experience!

I arrived in Wollongong and then headed to the Nan Tien Temple, after a slight debacle with my friends short shorts (you have to wear non-revealing clothing apparently) we had an enjoyable arvo looking around :). In the evening, the leftovers at KB had a bit of an evening together, having banter over dinner and then we watched hitchhikers guide to the galaxy :) it was a great evening.

The car I had borrowed had a crack in the windscreen so I headed down to the Glass Repair place for 8am, I dropped it off and went down for a cheeky swim for a couple of hours while it was done. Once back to KB I helped out a friend move flat, which involved going up and down lot of stairs. This was pretty hungry work so we decided to hit fishnets for lunch, after taking a slight wrong turn we ended up going up the M1 to Sydney so made a diversion back through some bushland. We eventually got there and got our burgers on! We hit some supermarkets before hitting the beach and got some cheeky rays. After heading back to KB again we had a cocktail night with a little group of KB people, dare I say it was one of the best nights I have had since getting here! My speciality was kiwi, mint and lime with a bit of vodka yum yum yum :). We had a great night playing a few games and having some chinwags!

After a late start on thursday I properly started my road trip. I had a road trip buddy for the first leg, we headed down to Kiama and then headed to the Minnamurra Rainforest. We had some great views of the Aussi countryside and by the time we got to the Rainforest it was unfortunately closed, despite this we were still deafened by the Cicada's! We headed up to the top of the escarpment on some very steep and winding roads, I was in 2nd most of the way. We also stopped off at the Carrington Falls, which was really spectacular and cooled our feet off in the river. We made it to Bundanoon in the evening and did some flips on the trampoline before chilling out for the evening, we watched The Lone Ranger which was good but pretty long.

Friday came with haze and rain descending, a weird highlight was the amazing shower that they have here, it is great! So powerful! (Yeah im lame). We had a late start and headed into Bowral to meet a friend, where we walked his dogs and then went up to Mt Gibraltar lookout. In the arvo we grabbed a sushi lunch (well, I had teryaki chicken) it was as good if not better than the last time I had japanese/sushi. In the evening we had a birthday celebration, my hostess was turning 20. So we made homemade pizza's for dinner, YUM, and swiftly got into a great night of bevvies, games and celebrations. Its safe to say it was a late night and a relatively late start with a BBQ breakfast on the porch overlooking grass and woodland. After some packing and more pizza to set me on my way I begun my journey to my next destination... Bega!

I headed back down the very windy and steep woodland roads back down to the coast. I made a few stops off on the way, one of these being Jervis Bay. I couldn't stay long but it was good to see a place that I had heard so much about. I also experienced the smallest waves so far since arriving in Aus, they were piddely.

After a pretty long journey along gradually winding woodland roads I made it to Bega and was greeted with a delicious roast dinner (my fav!), before catching an early nights sleep. I stumbled across Christophers Road so I had to stop off and take a wee piccy.

We kicked off sunday by heading down to Tathra Warf, we got a great view of the coast before heading over to the Bega River to check out the sand barrier system. It was a geeky morning talking about estuaries, marine/subaerial erosion of cliffs blah blah blah! We then headed off to Mumbulla Falls, we drove on a dirt track for a good half hour hoping we were going the right way, we eventually got there and had snags on the barbie before going for a jump and slide off and down the rocks in a plunge pool. Luckily it was pretty warm and the water wasn't too cold. After a bumpy ride back over the dirt track we headed down to Bermagui for a deep fried mars bar (YUM) and gelato. We also tracked down a bunch of pelicans, check out how big they are!