Country Home Motel Goulburn

... folk

There’s Eric and there’s Ric******* the CB to the trucks

To tell them that us cyc-a-lists are not just sitting ducks!

Then there’s ‘Triple R’ & M who get the food prepared

For Robert, pyrotechnics is his special flare

Rebecca, Robyn, Margaret make food to make us faster

And gave us all a brand new game - “Guess what’s in the pasta?”

Magella, Emmet, Caitlyn now ...

i was looking at flights and its going to cost me around $1200 to travel to the united states. ill start saving after my trip to straddie, and putting this money into my savings for safekeeping by mum. still need to look at insurance and accomodation options and ESTA.

... and down a highway for a few hours, a pit toilet is, in fact, a blessing in disguise. ;) I have a confession to make (those of you who know me well will already know this...). I worry about planning ahead. I am a planner. I have at least three contingency plans for each and every occasion, I am always three steps ahead of the next move, and I am an absolute information junkie, because the more information I have, the better I can plan ahead ...

... it up...) and then Jesus did it again when a few thousand people decided to have a camp out (Hey, we have a little boy's lunch here, let's feed 5000 people with that...). But there is a whole other strategy He uses, which I have never thought about, which is to get us to do things in advance that pay dividends later.

This is what He did for my dinner last night. I had thought that I would buy dinner in Goulburn, not having realised ...

... outside Sydney. I could go and spend some time in Sydney now that I'm so close, but I'm going to leave Sydney as my last stop in Australia as I'll be flying from there to New Zealand at the end of the month. Heading for Canberra now and Mount Kosciuszko the biggest mountain on the continent. Will be my second of the "Seven Summits"! Number three will be attempted at the beginning of next year in Argentina.

... to see it, but the diversion is well worth it as the Big Merino is one of the country's most famous big icons. Climb up and peer out through the eyes of the world's largest sheep." Feeling a pang for the green green grass of home (and er, um.....sheep) we decided to investigate........ Jon & Jules x

Next stop on the trip was Canberra. For some Australians this seemed an usual choice but I wanted to take a rail trip at some point on my travels and at 4 hours this seemed the most manageable journey. However I subsequently learnt that Canberra railway station is 6km from the city with no direct buses into town and that as my taxi driver then told me "most people ...

... Day weekend, which in terms of travel is roughly the equivalent of Labor Day in the US, coming at the end of the summer. However, I could drive the 110 kph speed limit on the Hume Highway, probably the busiest long distance road in Australia (it runs from Sydney to Melbourne). I imagine the beaches were still very crowded, at least by Aussie standards. Goulburn has a population of about 25000 and was bypassed by the Hume ...

As we had enjoyed our first stay in Canberra even though it was pretty cold we decided to stay again on our way south. This time we visited the aboriginal tent embassy. This was set up (from memory over 20 years ago) as a protest over various aboriginal issues. Various governments ...

... further on, we saw the beautiful Govett's Leap at Blackheath. There's a local legend that the spot was named for a bushranger who rode his horse off the cliff to avoid being captured by police. It was really named for the leap of water (waterfall) discovered by William Govett, which isn't as exciting a story. Our next stop was the Katoomba Scenic Railway in the Blue Mountains. It's the world's steepest scenic railway at 52 degrees! We saw the Three Sisters and a beautiful waterfall ...