We had until 17.00 today to relax, and then we had to go to the pub. In the beer garden, there would be the pickers-party, held traditionally at the end of a picking season. This apparently meant meat and veggies cooked in a "coffin" and lots of beer.

We walked into town early, hoping to use the internet, but they were closed so we played a couple of games of pool instead. At just after five, we joined a few other backpackers walking round to the back of the pub. There we found tables, chairs, a beer tap, and sure enough, a "coffin"-shaped box suspended over a fire.

We chose some seats in the shade, and chatted to the people at our table, and then to some other people who joined us, and some more. An hour or so into the party, the beer was flowing merrily and "food" was announced. From the "coffin" they produced lamb, beef and pork and carved it. Then they took the vegetables from the bottom of the coffin and put them out on trays. We were called over to take some plates and help ourselves along the buffet that had so quickly been set up. There were potatoes, onions, pumpkin, peas, carrots and more. Gravy, bread and the meat further down the table. And it was all delicious.

After the food was a little more beer and a lot more conversation. We joined George for a while and chatted about Argentina and how annoying Patrick was. All too soon, the beer stopped flowing and the crowd of nearly fifty backpackers moved slowly inside. It was also St Patrick’s Day, ironic as that sounds, and the party was on in the pub too, with a live performer. We stayed for a while longer, chatting to two really friendly Dutch guys, who we were sad not to have spoken to much before. At roughly midnight, way after our usual bedtime, we returned to the caravan for the night.

It grew darker, colder and looked increasingly as though it would pour down as we drove through the town. We chose one of the Big 4 caravan parks and decided to get a cabin as it was cold and had started to rain. We were both tired, but Mark was feeling rather ill too. He had a fever, headache, sore feet and was feeling very cold. While he wrapped himself up in four layers of clothes and a sleeping bag, Laura made some toast and cup-a-soups.

After a short sleep and a couple of episodes of The Simpsons, Mark was feeling a little better. Just to be sure, Laura warmed up some chunky tinned soup, which combined with some more toast, was dinner. The rest of the evening was spent chatting on the phone to our parents, eating buttered raisin toast, watching "Fools Rush In" and cuddling up in our sleeping bags. We fell asleep quickly to the sound of the rain beating on our roof.

A footbridge across the sparkling blue lake opposite our campsite connected the town to the dunes. Behind these grass-covered mounds of sand lay the beach. To the left, only a short (ish) way to the next headland where the beach was cut off. However to our right stretched mile upon mile of sand. This beach bore the original name "90-mile beach" although apparently, unlike its twin in NZ, this one really was 90 miles long, rather than 90 kilometres. All the way along it, massive waves grew up out of the turbulent water and crashed heavily against the beach. There wasn’t a soul in the stormy, uninviting water, but it was awesome to see.

After that short interlude, we began the long journey up the coast. By mid afternoon we reached Eden, just over the border into New South Wales. Here we raided the information centre for brochures on the area, but were sadly disappointed by what we found out. This beautiful coast is at its best in late spring, when you can go whale-watching, and throughout the summer, when it’s warm enough to enjoy the beaches and watersports. It was definitely autumn by now, and rather chilly indeed, so we decided to make our stay here a short one.

A little further up the coast, we found the caravan park we’d had our eye on, and we put up our tent. We then immediately made use of the heated indoor pool, just as the weather outside was worsening. The rain held off though, and after our swim we drove to town to explore. Merimbula (the town) was a nice little touristy town with colourful cafes and shops. We stocked up on food at Coles, and decided to return to the park to cook dinner before we succumbed to the temptations of the many takeaways.

It was not to be though, as the gas at the park had run out and there was nothing with which to cook our pasta and paprika chicken. So, back into town we went, where we bought a pizza and some chips. We devoured both in front of "Friends", the pizza was one of, if not the, tastiest ones we’ve ever had. Even better than the great pizza, was the lack of washing up, so we were able to get off to bed early, as it was to be another long drive tomorrow.

Anyway, back to Canberra. It’s not a huge city despite being Australia’s capital, and in fact it’s a nice size with a population of roughly 350,000. The new House of Parliament stood in the place of honour, on Capital Hill where it looked out over the city, parks and lake. We drove back out of town to Queanbeyan, where we paid for three nights in a cabin at the caravan park. The weather was very cold and incredibly wet, so putting up our tent seemed a silly idea.

We cooked an early dinner (buttered chicken tonight and pasta), before heading back to Canberra to see a film. It had been nearly three weeks since we’d been to the cinema, so there was a choice of things to see. We chose The Hurricane, and were absolutely bowled over by what a good film it was. Contented, we went home to bed.

Meanwhile Mark’s feet, which had become infected at some point a couple of days ago, were getting worse. The sores on them had spread and were leaking all sorts of unhealthy fluids, so decided to rest them a little today. Besides, there were plenty of practical things to be done: washing, shopping, internetting, catching up on sleep. All of the above we did, slowly, trying to stay out of the cold at the same time. As for Laura’s new hair colour, with all the gunk washed out and the hair finally dry (about an hour and a half), it looked pretty good. Mark was certainly pleased with his handiwork, and it suited the chillier weather very well.

Next we went to have a closer look at Parliament house, but Mark’s feet were far too sore to walk around it with the tour. We decided to leave all the walking until tomorrow, and drove to an out-of-town mall, Westfield Shopping town, where we looked round the shops and then went to see "The Story of us" at the cinema. When we got home, we tried everything we could think of to help Mark’s feet recover. We washed them with soap and water, soaked them in warm salt-water, put betadine on them and rubbed some more moisturiser into them. Then we let them sleep off all their treatments, and we did the same.