Day 1 Slept well. Up nice and early to tidy the house and make final preparations for the leaving the house for a month. Easyjet app advised of a delay on the inbound leg of the plane and that there would be a half hour delay on my departure. Case at top of the drive by 11.15 to await arrival of Leo and Paula for lift to the airport. They arrived in good time and the trip to the airport was uneventful, dropping Paula off at Alison's on the way, for her to get her hair done for her upcoming holiday. Leo and Paula off to Thailand tomorrow, so they are excited to be going away as well. Main case was checked in and they asked if I wanted to check in the other bag, which ... read more

Friday 25 December continued Sunshine all day. The rest of our day was quiet and we watched some films on tv. Later on in the day we spoke to our families. 9 kms driven today. Saturday 26 December Boxing day and sunshine starts the day. We woke and had a slow start. At 11.00 am we headed off to the Botanic gardens for a better look. Again we were really pleased to visit the place and we wandered around for some time looking at all the wonderful plants and wildlife. Next we went to the town centre retail area and bought loads of things in the sales, which we thought were already a good price, before reductions. We had Chinese for lunch in one of the food courts and then did some more shopping returning to ... read more

Monday 21 December A good nights sleep. Objective today, pick up hire car and drive to Coffs Harbour, approx distance 400 kilometres. We awoke and stirred at 7.30 am. Check out was 10.00 am and our car pick up was 10.00 am. So we showered and packed, left the room at 9.30 am. The rental was a short walk and with the great pavements here, our wheeled luggage was easy to walk through the streets. The office at the rental place was manned by one person, who was answering a constantly ringing phone and dealing with several people. Our turn came and our booking was there, so it was simply a case of filling in the paperwork. Out the door and down the ramp to the cars. Our car is Toyota corolla saloon automatic. We stuck ... read more

Thursday 10 December We woke at 7.45 am and gently stirred. We had been recceing our journey to the ship this morning over the last few days and basically we can get a Citycat down the river and the walks either end with our luggage should be manageable. We were due to check out by 10 am and we did so by 9.30 am. The Republic apartments were an enjoyable few days and lots of washing caught up with. We popped into Woolworths for last minute supplies and then made our way down to the Riverside walk. Note, I said downhill so this helped with our wheeled bags. Also the Australians have their kerbs sorted for disabled people so for us life was made easier, we didn't have to lift the cases once. We arrived at ... read more

Sunday 7 December continued We went for a walk at 6 pm to see what might be awake for food in this town on a Sunday evening. Neighbours had been out and back with a Subway meal so we had hopes of something. We headed over the railway bridge and were able to sight a McDonalds and a Kentucky fried chicken, Pat likes the occasional kfc so off we went. It was air conditioning at full strength so we took our meal back to the room. The brain was mush after we had settled down, so, I turned the television on and we happened to be at the start of the film Fury with Brad Pitt so we watched that. Monday 7 December A good nights sleep and woke at 7.30 am. We only had a ... read more