It was great setting the jayco up for the first time it took no time at all about ½ an hour, compared to 1½ and arguing the whole time… the first sleep was pretty good very different having a lounge and  kitchen just there was fantastic, very exciting having a new home. Andrews birthday on Thursday 6^th of dec, he opened his presents from me and I thought he got very spoilt, and then we headed off to the western plans zoo for the day. The zoo was great you drive your car around and look at the animals, get out now and again. It was a stinking hot day so luckily we were in the car. At the info stand the lady told me about the birth of a baby giraffe happening then and there so we went straight there, it was amazing I got it all on video, that poor thing has to drop like 2 metres SPLAT sure would of knocked the wind out of the poor thing. So many amazing animals in the zoo, we spent all day there and only got home around 4:30pm but very burnt. Camped just outside of Tamworth, Lake Keepit a nice spot not much around except the lake. Luckily we parked under a shelter because a huge thunder storm rolled in and it felt like we were going to be blown away. It was amazing watching the black clouds roll in over the blue sky. Toured Tamworth the next day, done the lookout, golden guitar, gift shops, markets. There was so much to see, but we wanted to get to the coast before night. Booked into the big4 at Port Macquarie  

This week has really been hectic you could say. The camper went into the trading post on Tuesday and didn't get a call until Fri for someone to look at it. In the mean time we have looked around at that many jayco's and they all vary in price and age. I really like the Eagle and Andrew likes the hawk layout, but we will take what we can get for the right price. Friday we went into the city centre of Sydney and had a look around, we caught a river cat to the central circuit and then caught a boat to Taronga Zoo. I was disappointed with the zoo half the enclosures were closed and there wasn't much to look at due to the renovations, but we still had to pay full price to get in. On the boat ride back you got to go under the Sydney Harbour Bridge and right past the opera house a great sight. We were heading to the national aquarium when some one rang to look at the camper and they wanted to come round straight away, so we had to give the aquarium a miss and head home on the river cat. I am disappointed because I really wanted to see more. Cleaned the camper and a guy and his wife came and looked at it; it was great they were really interested they went away thinking about it. The guy rang back two days later and brought a friend to have a look. They looked at every nook and cranny then they gave us an offer that we took. It all happened so quickly we weren't expecting to sell it so soon, they gave us a deposit. We then wrote down every jayco eagle for sale from the net around Sydney and we went looking. WE found one a jayco eagle outback 05, looked it over and it was perfect only used a few time's it was pretty much brand new. Know one had picked it up because it was to out of the way we drove about 2 ½ hours into the Blue Mountains to look at it. People didn't want to drive that far, we got it for a bargain we knocked $2500 off of the price because he was quite desperate to get rid of it.(he was quite well off) We let the guy know that he could pick the camper up the next day(mon 3^rd of dec). The next day we cleaned the camper out of everything and left an empty shell, when he arrived he was grateful and excited, he hitched it up and off he drove, I was a little sad to see Cameron go I get attached to things but I knew we would be better off with the jayco. All of our belongings were on the lawn of our site when the rain started we quickly covered it with tarps and ran under the camp kitchen shelter. I decided to stay at the park with our belongings while Andrew drove 3hours up there in the storm to pick the campervan up. Andrew rang the owner of the jayco yesterday to tell him to put the fridge on to cool it down before we picked it up, when he got up there the fridge wasn't working and the safety switch kept going off. Andrew wasn't a very happy man at this stage the owner said he would get it fixed over night and we could have it tomorrow, he said to take his trailer and put all of our belonging in it and come up tomorrow and load it all in to the jayco while it was still in his shed under cover. He gave us $250 off of the price so we booked into a cabin over night in the park after we loaded the trailer with our stuff. Meanwhile I was thinking we are homeless!! Nothing…… no home got a bit worried but Andrew reassured me it was all going to work out. The morning came and the owner rang, he said the fridge was working. They washed it and they had got some water in and turned the safety switch off all was fixed and we can come up and get it. Once we loaded the jayco and emptied the trailer we were off new home hitched up and on the road again. Drove to Dubbo, we were very excited.

Stayed at Batemans Bay for four days really liked that place, right on the beach and a great park. We went to MOGO zoo it was out in the middle of know where, I hadn't ever herd of it. It was bigger then Adelaide zoo, it had everything chimps, white lions, zebra's, snow leopard and a lot more. Most of the animals where in huge enclosures or islands, it looked like they were very well looked after. Also while we were there we headed down the coast to Bega, I wanted to go to the cheese factory. The factory had a lot of history about the town and also the process of making cheese throughout the years, it was great the end you could taste test as much as you would like, I made myself sick. It rained nearly the whole time we where in Batemans Bay and we just got really sick of the camper leaking because the canvas just couldn't hold to much water we are thinking about up grading. Headed to Sydney I was excited I had never seen Sydney before. On the way to Sydney a truckie got us on the UHF and talked to us for quiet some time. He toured around Australia with his wife and 8mth old daughter in a jayco dove not too long ago. He gave us some really great tips and he said the jayco held up fantastic on their trip. If we were going to get anything it would be a jayco because we have a friend that managers Adelaide jayco. We were in a lovely caravan park with great facilities, pool and 20 person spa. But they put us on a site where we couldn't get the camper level and that meant we couldn't peg it down, Andrew was angry and very frustrated, once we set up we put the camper in the trading post to see if we would get any interest in it, we wanted to sell it before we started work in January and it's the end of November.

Got up early because check out was 9:30 and we had to hook the camper up etc. Headed to the national Australian museum, which was fantastic I really enjoyed it. It has the hills hoist to the heart of pharlap, a lot to look at it took us around 3 ½ hours to look around it but you could of stayed there al day so much to look at. Got out side and it was raining AGAIN… we had time to spare we didn't need to be on the road just yet. Andrew loves snakes and lizards so we went to the national reptile centre. I really don't like snakes but when the guy toured us around he reassured there's nothing to be scared of, but he still didn't convince me. Had one last look at Canberra and headed for the coast, Canberra was a nightmare to get around and I wouldn't say it was my favourite place we have been. Arrived in Batemans Bay and went to the info centre to grab some brochures on the region. Booked into the Batemans Bay resort, it is a brand new park and it was fantastic everything was brand new. Cooked a great tea and had a few quiet beers next to the beach.

Slept in this morning, it was still raining outside. We decided to brave the weather and headed to the Australian war memorial around 10am. We spent a long 4hrs there and left at about 2:30pm. The memorial was breath taking and it gave me goose bumps, we could have spent a couple of days in there looking at all the museum, I think we only saw around half of it. It was so exhausting, all that reading and emotions. We drove around parliament house and john Howard's house before we retired back to our room and looked at what we have got to do tomorrow. Got a treat take out for tea because we had no cooking facilities.

We got up pretty early and drove straight to Canberra. Straight to the info centre we go to see where the caravan parks were. We drove and looked at all of them, but al of them had concrete slabs and we couldn't peg down the camper. We had no choice but to book into a hotel room and leave the camper in there car park. The room wasn't that great for the money but on the other hand it was forecast for heavy rain and thunder storms for the next few days and I'd rather be in here then the camper. I said I would go and get something for lunch, so I drove off to find something. What a nightmare, I got stuck in traffic all these roundabouts and one way streets. It took me right into the city and out the other side of Canberra; I drove around for about 1 ½ hours until I found a super market. I would have rather gone hungry; I was stressed and frustrated when I got back to the room. Huge storm rolled in, but we sat inside looking out on the rain for a change. Relaxed for the rest of the night, it was great to have a bathroom and a king sized bed!!!!

Packed up really quick, said goodbye and off we went to hike up the top of Mount Kosciusko. Got there at 9:00am, just as the lifts opened and brought our tickets $26 per person. We jumped on a chair lift to take us up to the platform, and then walked to start the hike we were stuffed already. Got to the first lookout we asked ourselves do we want to go on any further, we decided yes we have to do this. By the time we got to the bottom of the last hill climb we were pretty stuffed, we had to push ourselves up the last 800m. Yes we made it; it took us about 2 hours to get to the top of Australia. Once we had time to take in the breath taking scenery and get our breath back we headed back down. Heading down was the hardest part of the hike, my knee and ankles were aching all the way back down and because of the altitude my asthma started to play up and I couldn't breath proply and Andrews's feet were sore. On the way back down the flies were horrendous Andrews white t-shirt was black with flies luckily we took our fly nets to cover our face. It was hard yards getting to that chair lift but we made it, got off at the bottom and our legs were like jelly and didn't want to work. We walked up 2229m above sea level, 15km up a mountain and it took us just under 4 hours I thought that was pretty good for two unfit people. We drove to Jindabyne and couldn't go any further so we had to stay, we were so exhausted. Went to the pub for a $6.00 meal and a hard earned beer. 

Great nights sleep last night; I change the end of the bed that we were sleeping at maybe that was it. Went to see the Snowy Hydro renewable energy plant (Murray 1) where it is an integrated water & hydro-electric power station. They have 10 turbines, each one capable of producing enough power/electricity to supply over 95,000 homes. On the way back we stopped at the Olsen's look out which looked directly at the mountain face. Got up to 35 degrees today and i'm hoping that it doesn't rain tonight before we pack up tomorrow. Started talking to the couple next to us, they are around there 50's Julie and Rod from Mansfield. They have been coming here to this spot for 30 years; there come mostly for the trout fishing they caught 15 trout today.

We decided together that we were going to change our attitudes, and hopefully NSW will be a lot better. Packed up in the rain again and headed to Albury, had lunch there and went to the info centre. We are going to the Snowy Mountains but we had to stop at Khancoban go get our NSW national parks pass and a map of the camp grounds. It cost $16.00 a night per car to enter the snowy mountains. We chose the camp ground called Tom Groggin camp ground only because it was on the Murray River. Once we arrived we got invaded by flies while we were setting up, we got some water from the river and had a cool shower to cool down. I started the camp fire while Andrew cooked tea, had tea by the camp fire until a thunder storm started to come then we moved to the annex. It was amazing we watched the storm split in half and the lightning just going around us, I haven't ever seen anything like it. Maybe our luck is changing, today was great it went really well.