Feb. 18 - we climbed North Brother Mountain.

Feb. 18 we climbed North Brother Mountain.  On route we saw some huge eucalypt trees.  One over 6 feet across as you can see in the photo.

The view at the top was spectacular. 

  You can see from this utube video that it is done from this location

At the Top we met 3 Auzzies, John, Phil and Jason doing what Auzzies are know for:

We also met 3 ladies.

The lady on the 2nd fromthe left tells us she retired and travelled all over Australia and ended up in Foster. The best place to live.  You heard it here first.  Get your property now.  I am told in Laurietown where we are currently anchored that a nice 3 bedroom house goes $400,000. Here is a listing for you

On the way down the mountain we took photos of the bark that comes off the eucalypt trees.

when we returned I got some nice shots of pelicans

We had great fun yesterday on a 39 foot surf board.  We were surfing on the Cats Paw IV on a wave.  We were all terrified that if we turned sideways that we might have filled up with water and capsized.

Feb 17 we were in Cape Hawke and hiked up Tomaree Hill 661  metres.  “ the best view in all Australia the sign said.  We saw a WWII artillery site that has 2 – 6 inch guns and 2 -3  inch guns.  Built in 1941 and dismantled in 1947.  The guns were never fired in anger.  You can read more in the photo(photo to come soon) if you click on it.  

We also walked to the cliffs and saw 2 fellows coming up with a bucket of fish. 

We had a great meal on route shared by our local magpie.

The views were spectacular.

In Port Sgephens

We are currently in Port Stephens after a very fast passage on a Fast Passage 39, the Cats Paw IV. Barb and I are on my sister Ann and her husband Barry's boat.  We traveled 71 nautical miles from Broken Bay near Brooklyn New South Wales on the Hawksbury River just north of Sydney.  Ann, Barry, Barb,mum and I spent 3 days in the Blue Mountains. We climbed down many many steps to Wentworth Falls where we all soaked out feet in the water.  Ann had a shower under the falls.and thoroughly enjoyed it.  The climb up was a very long one.  The  next morning we walked to the Three Sisters and then climbed down and walked through the rain forest.  We then took the tram up the cliff and walked back 40 minutes to our motor home.  

Day 2 in Australia

We did a hike on the Burleigh Head National park along the water.  We saw a Wild turkey, several small lizards and walked through a rock fall area (no stopping allowed - just like an avalanche area).  We were just south of Surfers Paradise as we looked up the beach towards the 80 story buildings.  We are currently camped in Palm Beach and had a great walk along the beach with the surf pounding and the Kite boarders zipping through the waves.  Kids were playing in the surf.  We were all relieved to get to the ocean where we have a nice cool breeze.  The views are spectacular.

We are safely in Brisbane.  We spent several hours getting checked out on our motor home upon arrival.
We are now camped among the Palm Trees.  Driving on the wrong side of the road has not been too great a challenge and one of the toll Highways we were on Barb pointed out was 6 lanes wide one way.  We are enjoying the hot humid weather and for those concerned about the cyclone we did not even have rain here upon arrival.   We have a cell phone so we will be available by email and cell.
The flight was long and we did have a delay in Sydney.  All is well and I will attempt to have some photos with our next post.