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Oceania » Australia » New South Wales
June 8th 2008

Published: June 17th 2008

(Matt)
My first experience of Australia was when, with great excitement, Steve, my then four year old brother, rushed over to me with a rock he'd found while digging in the garden 'Matt, Matt, I've found Australia!'. Someone had told him 'if you keep digging you'll reach Australia'and he took it literally, fair dinkum!

So how does a big rock in our garden compare to the real thing?

After visiting Melbourne and Sydney we continued up the east coast and visited: Port Macquarie, Byron Bay, Cairns and Brisbane.

We knew we were getting away from the big smoke when the number of muscle tops, beer bellies and mullets increased. We also saw more galahs, drongos and those with a 'kangeroo loose in the top paddock'. We were really lucky to discover early on the joys of self-contained apartments, they are only a few pounds more than backpacker hostels but for the money you can get ensuite double rooms with your own kitchen. When we first arrived in Australia we didn't even bother asking in them because they looked too nice and we thought we wouldn't be able to afford them.

Over the last few weeks we've managed

We got very excited at seeing a koala crossing sign

to cross off quite a few things on our Oz animal to see list, we've seen: roos, wallabies, a dingo and loads of koala bears.

In Port Macquarie we visited the world's first hospital dedicated solely to the care and preservation of koalas. It was just like a real hospital with an intensive care unit and they even had a board with all the names of the koalas on it that listed their symptoms!

Byron Bay was a beautiful stretch of unspoilt coastline unfortunately for us we had heavy rain for three days so we had to resort to lounging around our really beaut apartment watching the free film channels and drinking grog from the nearby Bottle-o. As we were a bit bushwacked it was bonza.

We visited Cairns in order to go to the Great Barrier Reef. We orgainised a one day snorkelling tour and it was amazing, one of the best things we've done on our trip. In general we've seen better fish but the colour and shapes of the coral more than made up for it. We also saw a turtle and swam with it for a while which was fantastic. Catherine (me Sheila)

Just like ER but with koalas rather than people

also saw a shark we think it was about 3ft but it's hard to estimate when you're frantically splashing in the other direction trying to shout 'there's a shark over there'!

We spent an enjoyable day in Brisbane, we especially liked the pavillion walk and the man-made city beach. Our main reason for going to Brisbane was for the airport, next we fly to Alice Springs where we'll go to see the most famous aussie rock of all.

Additional photos below

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