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Published: January 22nd 2007
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Newcastle beach
the tankers were off to the left...this looks quite nice..believe me it wasn't! Day 1-2 Newcastle (about 2 hours north of Sydney)
Well what to say about Newcastle that isn't too rude to write on the blog....er...well I can't really think of anything. The whole hostel was scrambling over itself to leave by the 2nd day. The town closed down in the evening by 10pm so there was nothing to do, which is why on a Friday night everyone in the hostel was in the tv room watching 'Coming to America' (Oz tv is awful..this is new to them!!!). The greyhounds bus also broke down for 2 hours on the way there but luckily it was near a shopping centre. Sadly due to weight of our current luggage situation we couldn't buy anything....damn those ruck sacks....
And the beach in Newcastle reminded both of us of Whitby....all you could see for miles and miles were huge tankers, presumably carrying something like coal (has to be coal if its Newcastle, right?!). Very picturesque.
Oh and the fact that the hostel was a complete sh*t hole didn't help either. Place smelt of pee, was dirty, bed had springs sticking out of it. Great start! And you lot think we're having fun every day.......!!!!!
Well we kind of had a little bit of fun as we spent our only first full day in the area on a tour of the Hunter Wine Valley....getting drunk seemed a good coping strategy! The Hunter Valley is lovely, a beautiful area full of beautiful wine!!! Although even I had to start spitting it out (no jokes please!) by the 7th winery and 100th glass. Bad headaches the next day.....:-(
Day 3-5 Coffs Harbour (about 7 hours North of Newcastle)
Hurrah we left Newcastle! And hurrah we loved Coffs Harbour! Even the fact that the greyhound bus broke down AGAIN (this time we were about 4 hours late and ended up getting a taxi the last part of the way!) didn't upset us. And the hostel was clean clean clean! Oh and thank god for ensuite rooms...I LOVE ensuite rooms! Coffs is a teeny weeny town so not much to report on here really as there wasn't alot to do so we basically spent the time sunning ourselves or playing in the sea....bliss after Newcastle!
Day 6-9 Byron Bay
Another little sea side town although bigger than Coffs and a backpacker must....a v v v
chilled but trendy place with great bars that had great bands. Also very close to a place called Nimbim's which is basically a hippy town where the use and sale of marijauan, although not legal, is tolerated by the poilce. One can buy (if one wished) three 'special cookies' for 10 bucks. Apparently. And that's all I'm saying on that topic!!!!
We also went sea kayaking to see dolphins..well that was the plan. Unfortunately no one had filled the dolphins in on said plan. Shame. We did see a sea turtle though. In some ways it was a bit of a relief not to see a fin in the water...I'm not sure what I would of done. I'm guessing it would of involved freaking out. The guide was reassuring us that they never saw sharks in these parts and then (and I swear on my life he said this AND with a straight face) .."oh apart from the great white the other week which was over the other side of that cove". I was trying not to hurl due to motion sickness at this point so at least that took my mind off that little gem of information.
Oh and some idiot in the group thought it would be fun to capsize the kayaks at one point. Being a hater of deep water (yes I'm not entirely sure why I was there either!) I told him I'd beat him to death with my paddle if he came within 10m of me. He later referred to me as 'that scary woman' when talking to Helen. I think I got my point across. Helen meanwhile loved the whole experience. Personally I reckon that's only because you don't get sea going cockroaches.....
Day 10 - 12 Coolangatta (about 30 mins outside Surfers Paradise)
Another lovely place, with huge empty white sanded beaches. But a not so lovely hostel as it was situated between the airport and the pacific highway on the outskirts of town (on the plus side we only had 100m of traffic to dodge before we got to the most amazing beaches) and our room was the size of a small cell! Spent one night out in surfers paradise which isn't nearly as bad as everyone makes out...not quite Blackpool yet!
We also visited Warner Movie Theme Park (they have a roller coaster which has the
fastest start ever. Apparently the G force is the same as a space shuttle taking off. Was fab!!). We also went to Sea World which was ace....video of the dolphin show attached...awwww! I wanted to swim with them but annoying little kids had taken all the places.
Day 13-16 Brisbane/Stanthorpe (3 hours West of Brisbane inland).
Brisbane...dull dull dull.....yawn. Went to the cinema!
Stanthorpe.....the as*e end of nowhere! Known for having lots of granite and tin. Yes very exciting. So why did we go there you may ask yourselves? The answer is Stanthorpe is also famous for its wine so we did yet another wine tour. Hurrah! We stayed in an interesting motel. See the attached pics of the "not quite finished kitchen" as the motel owner put it. By the way Mum thanks for the mini torch you sent me at xmas it stopped us from stepping on any snakes on the way to hells kitchen!!!!!
ps Don't tell Helen but I accidentally stir fried a rather large beetle into our dinner the night that pic was taken...hey I picked it out!!!!
Day 17 - 19 Caloundra (3 hours North of Brisbane)
Pretty small-ish town that
Byron Bay
..which also happens to be the most easterly point in Oz. Interesting fact for you! closes at about 6pm so just chilled out for a few days. Although its very handy for Australian Zoo so we went there on the first day....patted the kangaroos, tickled the koala's, stroked the lizards, watched the croc show, fed the elephants. Brilliant but a hot hot hot day!
Right that's about it for now, sorry its a long blog but it'll give you all something to read at work! We're off to Noosa tomorrow morning then onto Fraser Island so will report back again as soon as we get chance!
Hope you're all surviving the storms in the UK!
xxx
ps Thanks for all the happy birthday text messages so far...please note I'm going backwards now so am officially 34 tomorrow NOT 36!
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Smokey Joe
non-member comment
I like cookies :)
Nimbims looks good, cookies can have many healthy attributes especially when one packs them with ones finest pumpkin seeds, etc... I can only imagine Helen after $10 worth of those...Enjoy, all looks fantastic, great here as -5 deg and love the 6am starts scraping of ice, etc.... S n L xxxx