Happy Easter!

After watching the sunrise in Byron Bay, i was too paranoid to go to sleep in case i didn't wake up - i didn't want to miss my bus! As it turns out, the bus was an hour late (i've never seen that in Oz!) because of the BluesFest traffic and because it was Easter weekend, and my exhausting day was spent doing just about nothing! So i was pretty tired when i got into Coff's Harbour. I stayed at a hostel called "Aussietel", it was pretty cool because the girls there had activities planned ALL THE TIME so there was never really a moment where i had nothing to do! There was a bbq the first night i was there, then a trip to the pub, the next day there were beach activities (since everything was closed for Good Friday) and then a punch night (all you can drink!) with another shuttle going to the only club open in Coff's. I also did a LOT of walking (to cross one of the beaches took about an hour against the wind!) and had a lot of time to relax on the beach. Honestly, my feet were so sore afterwards... :)They have this walking trail up a huge hill (it's some kind of bird sanctuary) and at the top it was so windy i could have sworn that i was going to blow off. But it had this amazing view at the top - once again, pictures do it no justice!

Two interesting things did happen to me in Coff's - one thing was that i met the first person who couldn't understand me because of my accent! (He really couldn't understand why i thought that was so funny, but i thought it was hilarious because i hadn't encountered that yet). I could understand myself fine! The second was that on one of my walks, a snake fell out of a tree right on top of me! It seriously scared the crap out of me. It was a small (in diameter) but long green snake, and i shook it off so fast i think it might have been more scared than me. But once it landed on the ground it lifted it's head up and was looking around, so i hightailed it out of there. I only thought that i had to worry about spiders falling on me - apparently now i have to worry about snakes too!

So it was still Easter weekend when i wanted to go to Newcastle, so once again the bus was an hour late, i arrived in Newcastle really late and had to take a taxi to the hostel instead of being picked up. (oh well, what can you do). I really liked Newcastle off the bat. The first day i went to the beach and i was walking through the residential neighborhoods, and they were really, really nice. This was another place where i ended up with sore feet at the end of the day from so much walking! I've been really lucky that the weather has been so good as i've gone further south. I seriously walked all around Newcastle that day. There were two beaches, a lookout point, a lighthouse, a beautiful harbour, and plenty of shops (which were all closed because of Easter, of course).

I also travelled to Hunter Valley for the wine tasting. It was great - i know nothing about wine (but now i'm a little more educated). It was really weird drinking wine at ten in the morning, but i quickly adjusted to it! We also had a chance to sample cheese, and fudge. (yumm!) I definitely prefered the lighter wines to the darker reds. And the dessert wines were definitely the sweetest! My favorite place was where we sampled all the liquers (i couldn't believe no one had heard of butterscotch schnapps!). My favorite was the chili schnapps....super hot....a small bottle of that is coming home with me!

So it's definitely not easter anymore as i'm posting this a little late, but i hope everyone had a great Easter and that someone saved a chocolate egg for me! :)

Love Lindsay :)

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