Nowra and Jervis Bay

Nowra, New South Wales, Australia

Stopped in Nowra – a fantastic region about two hours south of Sydney for some catching up with our friends from the China tour – Judi and Wendy. Judi was a fantastic hostess, putting us up for a couple of nights in her B&B/castle, complete with a yummy feast on one of the nights, and a guided mountain bike tour with her buddy Jamie from down the street. On the second night Wendy and husband had us over for another wonderful feast displaying the famous Oz hospitality.

We also found an hour or two to take in the beautiful scenery around Jervis Bay, wishing we had our dive gear so we could play in the water. Jervis Bay is apparently a great place to go diving. Next time…

Dinner at Wendy'sThe food was delicious, the company fantastic, and the classic car collection out back was pretty cool too!

Judi in NowraJudi Joanne and Henry the really cute, and really annoying chew everthing puppy! (Judi was an unwary dog sitter for a work colleague). Words can't do justice to the description of this little terror. He certainly kept us entertained!

Mountain Biking in NowraJamie (our awesome guide for the morning), took us on a nice ride through the Nowra forests, including some of the trails he made himself. This was a fun ride complete with dashing kangaroos, although a little truncated as Jo found the ground in a rough way (we blamed it on the unfamiliar bike). No worries though, outside of a bruised ego and a big bruise on the leg, no lasting injuries. 🙂

The whitest sand beach in AustraliaThis was claimed to be the whitest sand beach in Australia, just south of Nowra in a beautiful marine reserve. We watched schools of hundres of fish feeding maybe 5 metres from the shore at sunset.

Tilba Valley WineryOn our way to Nowra, couldn't resist a pit stop at one of many picturesque wineries - here Tilba Valley Wines. Enthusiastic ex Engineer served up a very educational flight of samples along with explanations of the local flora and fauna. This man knew his wines (and beers for that matter!) This was our favourite - the 2004 Chambourcin, which very unfortunately, did not last long!