The coast is nice, but we are continually drawn back to the hills

Once again, we left our campsite upon waking up. It's been easy to find free overnight spots, but the last several have been located where we don't get any morning sun, so we move on right away to find a sunny spot to have breakfast.

And on that note... the sunshine and blue sky continues! Our Australian winter started off cool and wet, but the last few weeks have been nothing but gorgeous sunny skies.

The view from our breakfast table

We've actually been pretty lazy the last couple of days.

We made our way north back to Bateman's Bay, with a stop at the Botanical Gardens. I (Kevin) didn't find the gardens that interesting, but Ruth said she could have spent a longer time there.

July Expenses

Here in Australia we have finished off the month of July, while most of our readers are in Canada or the United States where they are just starting the last day of the month.

It is interesting for us to be able to show you that the costs to RV full time in Australia aren't much different than Canada or the United States. Our total expenses for the month of July came in at $2,113 CAD ($1,610 USD) and that included buying Ruth a new $752 CAD ($575 USD) laptop.

Beach kangaroos

Once again, we got up and started driving right away. We figure that it easily warms up in the cab, so we might as well do some driving to start the day. Then, by the time we park somewhere sunny, the camper warms up quickly as well.

But, we were out in a state forest area and we wanted to do a short hike and see a lookout before heading back into the town of Narooma.

Innovative ways to use scenes of Australia to decorate your home

New South Wales is a wonderful place. It has stunning wildlife, beautiful scenery and opportunities to enjoy all sorts of activities. In short, everything you can think of. Unsurprisingly, the area attracts a lot of tourists. Last year, they came in huge numbers numbers, over 100 million visitors.

Naturally, most of them took lots of photos. So, today, we thought we would take a look at some of the different ways tourists can use those images to decorate their homes.

Glad that we look after each other so well

Woke up and put the solar panel out right away to collect as much of that free electricity as we could. Gotta make hay when the sun is shining. Or if no hay, at least some electricity!

Across the bay, I was watching some people interested in something on the shore line. This harbor has a resident seal population, and they were watching them work their way up onto the rocks to enjoy the warmth of the sun.

No sunshine today, but we've had a good stretch of fantastic weather!

We didn't hear a single vehicle drive by us all night, just as we expected. We got up at daybreak though, and drove into the town of Tuross Head.

We found a fairly level parking spot, close to a public bathroom. The only thing it was missing was some sunshine, but we had woken up to overcast skies so the shade in our parking area didn't make much difference!

It's not that easy to find a free overnight spot, but we are pretty good at it!

The first stop of the day was the Congo Campground in Eurobodalla National Park. We had no intention of overnighting there, we just wanted to see if there were any trails to take advantage of.

It turned out that there wasn't much to see at that particular spot. And had we wanted to camp, it was going to cost $8.50 AUD per person. Not unrealistic, but there was no real reason for us to stay.

What's on the schedule for the rest of 2019?

I mentioned yesterday that it is almost August. That means there is only five months left to the year. But, a lot can be accomplished in five months. So I thought I would tell you what's on our schedule for the rest of this year.

Our Australia trip is coming to a close. We've been here for two months today!

Every nook and cranny along the way.

Hard to believe we are coming up on August and that we have been almost two months already exploring Australia in Bundy and Joyce.

We're getting close to Sydney, which is only 300 kms (180 miles) away now. So now that we're back on the coast, we've slowed right down and will explore every nook and cranny along the way.

"Dolphins.... there are dolphins in the river!"

It's a great free campsite here at Clyde River National Park, but the two available sites are both in all day shade. So when we woke up in the morning, we decided to head right away to the town of Bateman's Bay, only 8 kms (5 miles) away.

I was busy getting things ready to go, and I heard Ruth yell about something.

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).