A quick tour of Australia's capital city, then back to the coast!

When we woke up, we hit the road right away. The winds had died down and it was fairly calm for the rest of the day.

We drove to the city of Canberra (pop 400,000), which is Australia's capital city. Many people would think that the capital of Australia is either Melbourne or Sydney, but they would be wrong. The same way that many people think that Toronto is the capital of Canada!

Vigorous, damaging winds.

We had seen the wind warnings this morning, and so with no dire need to go anywhere we figured we were better off to stay put. Anybody who has driven with an RV knows that gusty wind days are no fun for driving... so while we do see other RVs out on the roadway, we have no ambition to put ourselves through that.

And our new friends Ian and Kaye decided the same thing!

Well, that's enough of that!

We had a totally peaceful evening camped beside the river in Numeralla, and we slept well.

It wasn't even that cold when we went to bed, so we were somewhat surprised that we were able to see our breath when we woke up... and there was frost on the ceiling of the camper... yes, on the inside!

We are certainly not driving up into the snow!

Strange weather. When we went to bed Saturday night, the temperature had dropped like a rock, down to 2C (36F). We had even put our pajamas on! But by the time we woke up, it was 13C (55F). Not exactly warm by any means, but a lot better than when we went to bed.

We got up and did some driving right away. We had to go through a mountain pass area, which brought our elevation from essentially sea level to 1,000 meters (3,200 ft).

Change of plans... heading inland...

We had such a quiet night in the middle of nowhere! When we got up, our immediate destination was a waterfalls I had read about... it was only 6 kms (3.5 miles) away on a dirt track.

And it only took us a half an hour to do that distance! Yes, driving.

Whale sighting!

We got up and drove right away this morning... just to warm up! They have typically been calling for between 7C and 9C at night, and last night was no different. But when we woke up, it was only 2C (36F) and there was frost on the hood of the truck.

We're okay sleeping like that, but it's kinda chilly getting out of bed.

One of our first worthwhile Australian sunset photos!

Checkout from the "holiday park" was at 10:00am. FIRM. NO EXCEPTIONS, as we read when we had signed in.

That's a little early. I would have thought 11:00am or even noon made more sense. But, we knew the rules! So we were up at a half decent hour and getting things packed up.

Fortunately, if we were to slip and fall, the water was only about two feet deep!

There is a trail that goes around the lake here at Eden. Most of it is maintained, but there is a section of about  a kilometer (0.6 miles) where they haven't been able to negotiate with landowners enough to complete the circular route.

We did the trail the other day in the counterclockwise route, and had to negotiate our way through some private property. But we had seen a trail going in the clockwise direction that perhaps avoided that problem.

We have decided for sure that we will be selling our Australian RV...

The main reason we are here at the holiday park is because I had some internet work to do. I manage a group RV deals page on facebook, and of course we are in the middle of "Prime Days" with Amazon. So it's a busy time.

And, while I can run this group no matter where we are in the world, it is a little more inconvenient when we are in this part of the world.

Lots of jelly blubber in this area!

It seems we're into a stretch of decent weather. No rain in the forecast to speak of. Plus... we're on holiday, staying at a well equipped holiday RV park for 4 nights in a row.

They have a nice boardwalk that goes part way around the lake. So we went for a walk this morning, hoping to accomplish the entire loop.

We're on holiday for the next four nights!

We left the free Genoa Campground at around 10:30am and our route finally has us heading north. In Australia in the winter, most RVs are heading north because that's where the warmer weather is.

We didn't have far to travel though... we had our sights set of the town of Eden, and of course the Garden of Eden.

More beautiful coast photos...

Since we have been here, we have found that the winter overnight temperature in the southeastern Australia area usually goes down to around 7C (45F). But it can vary between 3C to 11C (37F to 52F).

When we are sleeping, we are fine... even if it gets down to the lower end of the scale.

But when it is time to get up... we don't want to!

A bit of a rant, and then a beautiful day!

We were camped Thursday night at Binn Beach Campground... a free, unserviced spot in the middle of nowhere with room for maybe four or five rigs.

After dark, some kind of van arrived. It was dark, so we never saw the people themselves. But they proceeded to set themselves up and they were no problem at all.

Until about 5:00 o'clock in the morning!

Deserted Australian beaches

Yes, we are having to put up with some cooler weather here in the south of Australia. But the benefit is that there is hardly anybody around. People in Canada and the U.S. head south in the winter. But here in Australia, they head north when things get cold!

So we don't find too many other people out exploring like we do.

Booked a trip to Ecuador!

Our travel schedule for the balance of this year had been pretty much full, but we had a gap of about three weeks in October where I was actively looking for something for us to do.

We are going to be in Ottawa for all of September and the first part of October, and our flight back to Austin, Texas to pick up our motorhome isn't until November 5th.