Ok, so its been a while since I’ve updated this blog, but hey, it’s my vacation and even at the best of times, I am a bit writing challenged. For a somewhat more verbose description of the trip check out: http://paigrsbrain.blogspot.com/. This is my daughters trip blog (she is running at Hunter Valley as well)

Since the last post, we’ve left Port Douglas and travelled by air back to Sydney and then hopped on a train to Wollongong, a city southwest of Sydney.
I kind of made a decision to avoid driving on this holiday, as much as possible. Not because I don’t like driving, but I wanted to avoid those family “discussions” about where to drive to and how to get there, etc. I refer all questions (are we there yet?) and suggestions (let’s stop at this tourist trap/junk shop) to the train engineer, while I settle back with the tiniest of self satisfied grins.
The train network in NSW is amazing. City light rail is integrated with inter-city trains, and they are all seamlessly linked to airports, ferries and busses.(city and country busses). All this is supported by web sites that plan out the best route and optimize your travel time. There is no real equivalent to this in Canada, think of having the transit systems from Windsor to Quebec city integrated into a single system. Oh, yeah, cheap too – $7.00 to travel by train from Winsor to Quebec city.

Sudbury (Wollongong) Saturday Night

Wollongong is an industrial city, similar to Sudbury or Hamilton, but with palm tress and large beaches.
At the far end of the beach you can see a massive coal fired generationg plant.
The weather was cool, wet and windy, but the people were warm and friendly.

This the view from the apartment, not coal fired power plant in the distance.

We don’t have a lot of pics from Wollongong, but this is typical of the area.

Life is a High (Rail)way – Off to Hunter Valley

It back on the train and off to the Hunter Valley, one of several wine regions in Australia, for the Hunter Valley Half marathon. My daughter is running in the 6.2km race, her first ever!
So we jumped on the train again, this is the route we took: http://www.131500.com.au/plan-your-trip/trip-planner/@@map?trip=3&tps=ULTJP25_616644519

Waiting at a country train station on route to the Hunter Valley.

And Finally – the Hunter Valley

After more than 6 hours on the train we arrived at the Hunter Valley hotel/race location – Hunter Valley Gardens near Pokolbin NSW (Cessnock is the closest town – sort of looks like small town Alberta mixed with a bit of English country side and attitude).