Australia has done an excellent job containing this nasty Covid thing and one of its most effective tools has been to close both the international borders and the state borders.  For travellers that’s bad news but luckily our backyard is monstrous – NSW is over 800,000 square kilometres which is bigger than Texas and four times the size of the UK.  It has over 230 national parks, thousands of kilometres of coastline, a striking mountain range running down its spine, immense stretches of farm land, an extensive river system and boundless outback desert.  So if you’re going to be trapped some place for an extended period of time this is the spot.

Julie and I ventured out three times in 2020 to explore this vast state, each one packed with new adventures and reaping huge rewards.  In late February, just before the Covid lock downs but with trouble brewing overseas and ominous warnings at home, we drove to Queensland to catch up with a slew of friends who live in the southeastern corner of that state.  The trip was a mixture of camping and couch surfing, great fun to catch up with old friends we hadn’t seen for a while and a chance to explore new places.  You can read more about this trip by clicking here.

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The highlight of our trip to Queensland was catching up with many old friends, some from Bangkok, some from work, some from our travels, some from our deep dark past, all great fun.

In June, after the first severe lockdown, we were allowed to leave Sydney and packed the roof-top tent again for a three week exploration of some of the river systems of the state, particularly the fabulous Darling River.  This little journey had it all – the rivers, the desert, the vast open spaces, exploring new places, revisiting old favourites.  Most importantly it made us realise how much more of this state we still had to explore.  The stories about this trip start here.

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By October we realised this horrible virus was going to be part of all our lives well into 2021 (and beyond!), so we broke the piggy bank and bought a more versatile and comfortable truck and camper to replace our good ole roof top tent.  Wanda, as Julie dubbed it, because you can have a female truck, became our new home for a four week trip around the broader outskirts of the state, basically heading north until we hit the (closed) Queensland border, then heading west to the South Australian border, then south to the Victorian border, then home.  Along the way we explored many remote national parks, long expanses of desert, endless banks of multiple rivers and met up with friends along the way.  And Wanda, our new home on wheels, was the star of the show.  Read all about it here.

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There’s no doubt 2020 has been a year to forget on just about every front and we’re all hoping this thing gets under control and everyone gets vaccinated in 2021 so life can return to some sort of normal, or at least the new normal.  But if you’re healthy, not working and have wanderlust, New South Wales is a pretty good place to be.  Julie and I have made the most of it while the world waits for better days ahead.

Finally, a few shots from the end of our last trip in the northern section of Kosciusko National Park.

Oh, and another thing. As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve upgraded/changed the template I use for our blog. This messy exercise was long overdue but the new format gives the site a slightly different, perhaps more modern, feel and allows me to play a bit more with layout, style, colours and format. It’s definitely a work in progress and I hope to make more changes in the future. All comments are welcome.