If I try to follow most of the culinary traditions of France and sometimes South Africa, the turkey and huge Christmas meal is the one which doesn’t inspire me too much. The two main reasons are the temperature and the fact that we are only 5 to share such a meal. So, Christmas on board is usually simple and this year may be more than ever. Merlin was just back to the water on the 24th morning, we then spent few hours cleaning inside/outside and packing for our coming trip. With a typical tropical heat, I really didn’t feel like spending hours in the galley. But because Christmas is not just about food, we focused on the children’s amazement and the happiness of giving and being together.
The next day, we packed our car with all our camping gear and headed South to Sydney. Our Sydney trip had 3 main aims: we had to go to the French consulate to renew Felix’s passport, we wanted to visit some good South African friends living in Sydney and wanted to watch the famous New Year’s eve fireworks. On top of these, we wanted to enjoy ourselves, discover some Australian land and coast and try our new tents!
As we had to be at 10am on the 27th in Sydney for the passport, we could only stop once on our way, which was just North of Port Macquarie (Crescent Head). Before heading off again, we went for a walk on a beautiful deserted beach.
Along the way, we stopped at few different beaches, all stunning, and all empty. We spent our next three nights with Emma and Harvey who are old friends of Greg from Cape Town. All the kids got on really well which was great to see. We had a great time there, catching up after too many years, enjoying the clear blue pool, helping with Christmas left overs, bushwalking and even mountain biking.
We then moved to Manly as we had a flat lent to us. We did more bushwalking (the Spit walk), went for some swims and off course did some sightseeing and museums. In the photo gallery you’ll see few photos taken at the Maritime museum especially while we were visiting a copy of the HMB Endeavour (Capitain’s Cook vessel) and the HMS Onslow, a 90m submarine from the Australian Navy (so many knobs,taps, buttons and pipes!).
The 31st arrived and where to watch the fireworks from was our big question. We changed our plans few times, the last one after chatting with some locals in the ferry taking us to Sydney. We arrived at our spot already quite crowded around 6pm. We had lots of food to help us while we were waiting. People were there from all over the world, happy to experience something which has a reputation to be very special.
At 9pm, we had a “warm up” with the “Family Show”. We felt disappointed by these first fireworks because Brisbane has a really good show in September. However, the midnight show is the one we will remember. It was amazing and so spectacular.
I had to ignore my agoraphobia when we had to go back. The amount of people around us was so impressive.
There was some pushing when it was time to take the train but we made it, all safe and together!
After the city, the nature was calling us again. We drove back taking the inland way and whenever possible we went through the scenic drives ... and of course the Hunter valley (which is the wine area!).
Compared to our direct route, we added more than 400km but we really enjoyed seeing the outback. We didn’t plan any stops in advance and usually were deciding where to pitch our tents in the mid-afternoon. Most of the time we camped in National Parks. The camp sites are more than very basic (most of the time they are also free) but they are always in great unspoiled locations. We explored Watagans, Gibraltar Range and our favourite Kings Plains National Parks, sometimes waking up surroundd by wallabies.
We also had a very very windy night at Chaffey Dam.
We went walking and exploring the rainforests, swimming in waterfalls and enjoying our new camping experience. The kids became champions at packing their tents (less than 4 min and winners overall) and used their scouting skills mainly to start our evening fires.
Lots of photos in the gallery http://merlinsvoyage.squarespace.com/australia/christmas-new-year-2012-holidays/
We arrived back to Merlin yesterday. Our “3 holidays aims” were complete.
We are all happy and rejuvenated by these new discoveries and are looking forward to an exciting 2013.