New South Wales

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10/20-10/28

We continued our drive down the coast and arrived in Byron Bay, a really nice seaside town. It seems to be a spot where a lot of Australians go to vacation and we found it one of the best places to relax in Australia. There were only a few streets to wander but we found a nice hiking trail up to the lighthouse. We took a break from swimming but it was nice to be by the beach all the same.

We found ourselves driving through a major rainstorm on our way down the coast so we managed to find shelter in the town of Coffs Harbour. Aside from going for a walk the next morning and getting extremely lost, we didn't do too much in town.

That afternoon we drove a little out of the way so we would have the opportunity to see Dorrigo World Heritage Rainforest. Once there it was apparent that the rainforest has that name for a reason. It continued to pour down buckets of rain throughout the day, but the rangers assured us a hike would still be safe because the top of the trees would shield us from the worst of it. We have never purposely set out to walk in the rain for hours and I must admit it was more fun than I would expect. After a few hours we got back in the car and began heading further south. I took a leisurely nap (about an hour or two), as I am prone to do while Andrew is driving, and when I woke up I looked down at my ankle and saw something strange. Upon closer inspection and I calmly asked Andrew to pull the car over. He followed my instructions and then I started screaming, rushing out of the car and trying to flick a leech off of me. I couldn't do it, maybe due to the full out hysterics I was breaking into, so Andrew had to get out of the car, come around, and get it off for me. It was a pretty horrifying ordeal and the rest of the day I thought things were crawling on me. They warned us about leeches in the rainforest but I never thought it could stay on you for hours without noticing. It was a most unpleasant surprise but I thank Andrew for saving me from the bloodsucker.

After that, I was ready for a drink so it was pretty lucky we were on our way to Hunter Valley, one of the most popular wine regions in Australia. We spent the next few days treating ourselves to the local wines, famous mostly for Shiraz but had some excellent whites also. At this point, we felt like expert tasters (by that I mean we can drink a lot) but Andrew sounds ridiculous when he tries to use the lingo in his limited wine vernacular. He picked up a few words but his definitions are questionable. The people he tried them out on were generally polite as his attempts.

We had a wonderful time seeing the countryside and were ready for Sydney, the biggest city in Australia. Since this was our second to last stop before heading home, we opted for a fancy hotel and took full advantage of the city sights. Our first stop was the Opera House which is an amazingly unique and distinctive structure that can be viewed from so many spots around town. It was originally supposed to take about 4 years and $7 million to build but ended up taking 14 years and $102 million to complete. Oops. It was really impressive to see from the inside and out and although we didn't actually get tickets for an opera, the we did see a symphony, and I only caught Andrew snoozing once.

Our main activities in Sydney were walking around town, enjoying the huge park, beautiful waterfront, historic buildings, Chinatown, Soho-type area and a boat ride around the harbours. Also worth mention is the Seafood we had in Sydney, and all of New South Wales for that matter, was excellent and since it is so abundant sometimes it is cheaper than meat on the menu. Most every meal we were able to try different fish, and were some of the best we ever had. We really liked Sydney as a city and were sad to leave, mostly because it meant we were heading to our final stop on our travel journey.

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Photos

Byron Bay
The easternmost point in Australia

Fairytales in the Botanical Gardens
Alice in Wonderland

Fairytales in the Botanical Gardens
Andrew looking tough with Humpty Dumpty