Last Sunday onwards....

We left Frank and Liz in Sydney last Sunday and headed off to Nelson Bay, Port Stephens in our hire car (French!). We stayed at the Oakes Pacific Resort which was the height of luxury and something Marg and I hadn't done before. The accommodation unit was 5 star and fully equipped (flat screen HD TVs etc.)..and surrounded by the resorts lagoon, which even I couldn't resist. Next morning we drove down to the wharf and picked up our retired ferry for a dolphin watching cruise. We stood on the bows all the way (eat your heart heart out Winslett/deCaprio)!

Inside the Sydney Apartment close to Darling Harbour

Crossing the Harbour Bridge

Nelson Bay-view from our apartment

Our retired ferry.... and view of the harbour

I see no ships

...but plenty of dolphins!

HUNTER VALLEY: WINE REGION

Pokolbin Village Resort -our unit

Morning breakfast in the Valley

"Call that a bottle? Nah. This is a bottle!" -sign of things to come!

Outside one of the 6 wineries where we sampled the goods!



Oh dear, another bottle to taste!



We set off the Leura in the blue mountains and took a cross country route, over spectacular countryside. It got a bit hairy at one point when I was faced with what, thank goodness, turned out to be only 400 yards of unmade road! However, a closer inspection of the map would have warned us that was the case. So, we avoided the major signage to Wisemans Ferry as that would have given us 15km of unmade road -shaken the french car to bits and invalidated my insurance too. The detour was worth it, as was the crossing at the toll free, chain ferry.

Wiseman's Ferry

Leura House







"wherefore art thou?"


Blue Mtns

Shall we take the Skyway across?

"famous last photos before the crossing!"

Valley shot from the skyway

..shot from the glass floor of the skyway...oooer!

over the rainforest

let's take the miners's train to the forest floor...should beat walking down?

signs at the end of the drop...thatnks for the info after the event

...and here's an even better sign after the vertical drop...abseiling would have been more comfortable, and safer I reckon!

bush walking on the forest floor

cable car back up and across

the "money" shot of the 3 sisters, safely back at the top and at Echo Point

looking at how insignificant the skyway is...would we have taken it had we seen the shot below before?!