Into the Wild

Because I was staying with Sean while in Canberra, we had the use of a car and thus the opportunity to off the beaten path so to speak. No more Greyhound for the rest of my trip! It was a great service, but it isn't the same as being able to jump into your own vehicle and travel parts less frequented by tourists. Canberra would be kinda difficult to explore without a car - you would need a bike at the very least or be patient with the bus system until you figured it out. The first places we visited were Coolaman and Wagga Wagga, about 3 hours west of Canberra and the home of Liz and Jamie, Sean's sister and hubby. Coolaman was fairly remote and had all the makings of a small rural, country town. It had a main street with shops, an RSL club and well, lots of open space! They were also in the midst of a bad tumbleweed outbreak and little tufts of tumbeweed were everywhere, some piled a few meters high! Anyway, it was Easter Sunday and Monday so we had a nice Chinese dinner and just sat around watching the footy and Liz and Jamie's wedding video since they were married earlier in the month. Very relaxing. Maree was eve so nice as to get me a Tim Tam Easter Egg! Yeah! The next day we drove around and took some pics of Coolaman before heading to Wagga Wagga for some lunch and a quick drive through for more pictures. A lot of the pics look the same and some don't quite capture the vastness and beauty of the landscape in the part of OZ, but I did my best!

Note: this isn't considered to be the outback, just the country. My trip doesn't feature the outback at all, sadly. Six weeks isn't enough time to cover the populated areas, let alone the outback. At some point in the future I would like to get a 4WD vehicle and take three months and go in the bush and explore the interior of the country, but that is a trip I need to take with at least one other person since you do not want to be stuck in the outback by yourself!