Landed in Sydney all safe and sound.

Well, that was LONG trip! We left Kelowna at 8:20 am on Dec 31st, had a long stay over in Vancouver for the day, where we hosted visitors from our private little spot in the food court.  (Thanks Mark, Heidi, Sonya, Enya & Brandon for dropping by).

7:20 pm flight to San Fransisco, then a quick transfer (literally arrived at gate as they boarded our seating group), then the long haul to Sydney 14.5 hours....Departed at 11:20 pm, just in time for a new years drink, and then set the clocks forward to Sydney time and ... hey, what the hell happened to Monday ?

We got to see an amazing sun rise, just a perfect red circle on the black horizon... Sadly, the iPhone photo didn't do it justice at all so it will only live in our memories.

Sydney has this great 'e-pass Smart' system where you can scan passports into a self customs clearance, that literally took 2 minutes and we were through customs! Woohoo !

Duffy was there to meet us, and shuttle us to the camper van rental place. It was nice to get a quick visit in but we will be back at their place in a week.

We drove down the coast to an area called Shoalhaven/Nowra for our first camp spot. The picture below is from along that drive.  We were hoping to get a beach spot but the Aussies are all on holiday too and beat us to the first come, first serve spots. We found a caravan park to be our home base for 2 days as we go exploring tomorrow. As for today - a major torrent of rain for 10 min and it's beautiful again.  Day 1 and Alex has already had his Aussie-Shower outside so he's checked that box and is most pleased about that ! Me, well honestly now that we are 'home' for the day, I'm just glad to take my shoes off.