Today we experienced a weird mixture of sadness and excitement.

It was sad to know that this would be the last journey in our van and in Australia. However, we were excited to see Sydney again after these three months away. We were also really looking forward to seeing our mates Jo and Paul again. They have kindly offered to let us stay at their place for a couple of nights before we fly to New Zealand, which is really good of them!

The journey back to Sydney from Canberra didn't take too long - around two and a half hours.

Once back in Sydney the first stop was the car wash. There is a valet service opposite the Travelodge on Pittwater Road (local knowledge comes in useful!) which seemed too good to resist. The idea of cleaning the remains of the many thousands of dead bugs from the van wasn't very appealing. Unloading the van and packing up our gear was going to take long enough, let alone cleaning everything. They did a great job. The van looked spotless outside, and they cleaned the cab area and all the windows. It wasn't cheap, but saved us a hell of a lot of time.

We arrived at Jo and Paul's in the late afternoon. They had another friend staying too, a guy called Ian who was stopping off on his travels around the world. We all grabbed a takeaway and discussed stories about our trip around Australia. It was so nice to see the guys again and we had a great night.

The following day was spent emptying the van and giving it a final clean. This took a lot longer and more effort than we thought. We also ended up with quite a lot of stuff that we couldn't take with us to New Zealand - food, scooter, body board etc. Needless to say, Jo and Paul did fairly well out of the spoils of our travels!

On our last night in Australia we popped up the road to the local pub to grab a meal and a few drinks. It was a great night, but sad that it will be our last evening spent with them for quite some time. As they were both out the next morning bright and early for work, we said our goodbyes before we went to bed. Sad to say goodbye to them again!