Wednesday, January 02, 2008

The Green Bogey Christmas Tour 2007

Ah, Christmas in Australia. A strange time of searing heat and bucket and spade holidays interspersed with images of snowmen and Nat King Cole ditties. Christmas triggers the school holidays and typically leads to a mass migration to coastal areas – in fact, it’s almost as if the holidays are bigger than Christmas itself. For my part, I joined in the escape, in a round about kind of way, as I embarked on a road trip to Buderim in the Sunshine Coast of Queensland and back again. My journey took me inland through the outskirts of Sydney up to the Upper Hunter Valley, through New England, cutting down to the coast at Coffs Harbour and up through the Northern NSW and Southern Queensland Hinterland to the Sunny Coast. The trip back took the coastal route, stopping at a number of seaside towns, reaching Sydney for New Year, before returning to Canberra.

In total I clocked up 3822 kilometres, which is pretty much the distance across Australia from Sydney to Perth! Along the way I visited countless towns, national parks, a few beaches and saw huge swathes of World Heritage rainforest, many waterfalls, quite a few lookouts and several petrol stations. Taking in so much has made it tough to narrow down the pictures and stories, but I’ve attempted that in the following entries, so read on at your leisure and click on any pictures you wish to enlarge!

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