"Aussie Coastal Bushwalk" Conquer 2022 Virtual Challenge Progress June 23, 2022

Well, here I am posting my next progress report now when my plan was to wait until the end of summer!  My motivation to post now came from virtually reaching Sydney and also passing the half way point well before the half way time.  I reached 1011 kilometres (628 miles) on June 20th and then arrived in Sydney today after covering 1043 kms (648 miles) on this virtual journey so far.  This chart is provided by the Conqueror Staff.  

 

This first map shows a close up of the ground I covered to date.

This map shows the overall view of where I am now and where the Finish location is.

This map is a close up view of Sydney, where that read dot is, and the red star shows where I actually stayed for the majority of the time when I went to Australia in 1998.  The view from my friend's backyard was Olympic Village, that is when you climbed her fence to look over.  When I zoomed in to get her location, and I saw all the names of places I had seen, it brought me back to those days.  What an amazing time it was!

I was excited to move the orange tack down and place it at Sydney.

Folded inside a pocket of my journal was the trips itinerary. This was the final version which I typed when I got back from that trip.  The original was well marked up with date and location changes.  What a world wind trip it was and no wonder I slept for 13 of the 15 hours on the flight from Sydney to Los Angeles.  

These are a few of the photos I took while in the Sydney region and just outside of it. I am still kicking myself that I only kept a bare minimum of the hundreds of photos that I took.

We did a full day hop on hop off junket which took us to many beautiful places, most of which I cannot remember the names.  I do know this is either Bondi, Bronte or Coogee Beach. We hit all three along with a few others.

I remember sitting outside at Doyle's and having a delicious fish lunch along with a cold beverage.

We spent a night at a cabin in the Hunter Valley wine region that belonged to a friend of my friend.  I remember the next morning we were waiting at a winery door for it to open at 10:00am. This was me after a few winery visits.  

I believe this is Manly Beach.

a view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge with the Opera House just to the left of it

In reality it was an amazing month spent in Australia!  

Now it's back to the virtual world with this challenge.