The Murray River, Canberra, Jervis Bay, Blue Mountains...

Murray River...well, it was fine for about 1 day, but then it got to be like driving through Saskatchewan for 4 days...boring!!!  Arrived in Canberra, capital of OZ, and toured around the parliament buildings, war memorial (beautiful) and gardens.  We had great accomadations here and warm weather.  From here we travelled east to the ocean and Jervis Bay.  Spent 2 nights here at a small hotel, where the owner Garry gave us lots of ideas for things to see.  We enjoyed our stay here as it was less driving around and more relaxing.  From here we drove north on the coast through Kiama which is a beautiful port town...beautiful harbour and a "blowhole", which was fairly active when we went through.  Then we headed in land to the Blue Mountains and stayed our first night at a guesthouse that we had booked on line and it was badddddddddd!!!  We checked out and found a great motel that we stayed in for 2 nights.  This area is beautiful...the gorge is like the Grand Canyon except it is fully treed.  We did some hiking in this area and it was great.  Then we headed into Sydney for 2 nights, which most people will tell you is not long enough, but we got a good feel for the city.  The harbour is gorgeous, we took a ferry to Manly Bay which was amazing....gorgeous beach, surfing contest on the day we were there and it was loaded with people, but still enjoyed it.  We spent 2 days, 6-7 hours each day, touring around, so needless to say we got our exercise and with the weather being around 28 and humid, we were like dishrags at the end of the day.  Now we are heading north on the coast and will probably stop in Port Macquarie today and plant ourselves for a couple of days.  We have a timeshare booked in Coffs Harbour starting Feb 24th for a week and then another timeshare in Surfers Paradise for another week after that.  We are really looking forward to that...spending some beach time.