After a great few days in London we hopped on the Chunnel Train to Paris. The Eurostar was a must do experience for us.

We wanted to travel through the channel tunnel so we weren’t too worried that it might be more expensive than a boat trip across. Wanda wasn’t particular keen on travelling by boat anyway due to sea sickness.

The Eurostar was comfortable but unfortunately our seats were situated in a spot where we didn’t have a complete window view and the people in front of us who had the full view up and went to sleep as soon as they sat in their seats. Still, most of the trip is spent in the tunnel anyway so we didn’t miss too much.

On arriving in Paris we made our way to the taxi rank and hopped in a cab. The taxi driver spoke not a word of English and we were the same with French but we figured out how to get to the hotel nonetheless. On leaving the cab I tried to give the cabbie a tip but he thought I was saying that he didn’t give me the right change so we all got confused. In the end, I didn’t give him a tip as it was just getting too complicated.

We had booked our hotel back in Australia and we ended up choosing the Hotel Louvre St Romain. We were very happy we did. The location was excellent being about 5 minutes from the Louvre. It was only a small hotel but very clean and tidy and reasonably priced for such a good location.

The breakfast bar was in the basement and the food consisted of ham, various cheeses, salami, tomatoes, cereal, fresh fruit, fruit juices and croissants. Vastly different from the fare we had left behind in London.

Having said that though, we didn’t stay long in the hotel room. As soon as we were settled we were out and about to see Paris!!

We decided to take the inland road back to Canberra. This meant a very steep climb up over the Great Dividing Range through the South East Forest National Park.  We stopped just below the summit at a lookout area (as did a lot of other travellers). I think the lookout is just in the right spot for a break after such a daunting climb.

The views are spectacular.

After a walk around through the bush we hop back into the car and set off through the winding road to Cooma.

Cooma is situated 2600 ft above sea level, in the southern highlands of New South Wales approximately one hour from Canberra and four hours from Sydney.

The town has a population of around 8000 and is the commercial and social centre of the Monaro Plains and Snowy Mountains region.

There are a number of attractions in and around Cooma including trips on the Cooma Monaro Railway for those interested in travelling on vintage railmotors.