G'DAY
Sorry for the tiny font in my last blog - this website has changed it's appearance :-(
Well, it's only been a short time since my last update but I'm going to try and update it at least on a weekly basis so I don't get too far behind.
Basically we spent a couple of days in Christchurch where there was hardly anything to do - souvenir shopping and that was it. But I can say we had a lovely roast dinner at a pub and it was only 4 quid - yum yum! Other than that no real highlight there.
Tuesday we made our way to the airport and left for Sydney that afternoon - a pleasant flight and got rather excited when I saw the Sydney Opera House in the distance from the plane! We got a shuttle to our pre-booked hostel and it turned out to be quite a dive! Plus we both had to climb up over some bars to get onto our bunk beds - not good when you have to do it in the middle of the night to go for a wee! But luckily it was only one night and then we made our way back near the airport by train to the campervan hire place where we picked up our little 'Hippie Campervan' - not as little as the last one though. It's actually a converted transit van, unleaded petrol (cheap) and manual. I drove it out of the depot, got on the highway and we thought we were lost but found out we were on the right road where we drove straight over the Sydney Harbour Bridge which was quite exciting for our second day in Australia!
So we made our way up to Palm Beach - the place where they film Home & Away and saw them filming! OMG! Let me just give you some background on me - for some reason I'm hooked on H&A! So this was major stuff for me! So we parked up - outside the surfclub and saw two takes filmed of Leah and Colleen. It then rained quite hard, went round the corner and saw Martha just about to do a 'take.' Once they'd finished shooting I remembered her real name 'Jodi' and asked for a photo - big cheesy grin from me but no teeth from her! hee hee. Ria also had her picture taken Then after getting excited about that we went to a tralier and saw Jack outside and we had our pics taken with him and I said to him "my sister loves you" and he responded with "oh, hello sister" (sorry Aaron!) Also got a picture with Jai - a newcomer to the show. We got some fan pics from a bloke and then thought we really should make our way onto our first stop, Lake Macquarie and found 3 campsites - all offices were shut though as it was past 6pm!!! We were imagining having to sleep in some rest area for the night - pretty creepy but luckily we went to campsite number four and it was open - we even had a 'drive thru en-suite' - yes it really is that!
Thursday, Ria was feeling unwell - she's got a nasty cold - which as I type this I'm now starting to get....thanks Ria! We made our way to Newcastle (Australia!) where we got some brochures from the Information Centre and then afterwards got lost trying to find our way out of the town - we seem to do that alot here! They need decent signposts and the roads aren't very good either - bumpy and lots of pot holes! But anyway, we finally got out of there and made our way along the Pacific Highway to Port Macquarie and thought that as it was like 5pm we should start thinking about finding a site as we realised that most campsites shut early! So we found a nice one and got a discount card which entitles us off to 10%. The good thing about the campsites here are the prices - something like $25 a night on average between us - about 10 quid! But anyway, we parked up and then decided we'd go back out and find a food shop. Got some grub and went back to cook it - pasta, bolognaise sauce with mushrooms and peppers - our speciality!
Friday, we left quite early and drove onto Coffs Harbour and parked up there for lunch where we ate prawns in breadcrumbs with some chips - naughty but very tasty! The weather is improving as we're heading North too so we decided to find a campsite and enjoy it. A few km's further we came across Moonee Beach which was a lovely little cove and we had a pitch right next to the beach. We then read about the possibility of seeing some kangaroos so we headed off to Woolgooga and stayed there for about an hour and a half waiting for dusk but then dusk came and no sign, but we had a lovely view of the waves breaking. That evening we just had some toast and jam for dinner as we'd had our main meal earlier that day.
Saturday we left there and made our way to Grafton which I'd read about in one of our brochures to see some 'Jacaranda' trees - hey, they looked pretty in one of the pictures. So we got there and saw these little colonnial buildings - more like an old country & western town and found the stunning bright purple trees - the leaves anyway! We went into the Info Centre and they gave us a route to follow of where we could view them all - they only bloom like this in October. So we drove along the route and Ria took some pictures for us - very pretty. After that we got back onto the Pacific Highway and headed for Byron Bay. En-route we stopped at a lookout and saw some dudes surfing and then all of a sudden caught a glimpse of a whale that was really close to shore. Every now and then we'd see it's blowhole and a bit of it's body stick out of the water where it was making it's way further out to sea - we couldn't believe how close it came to the surfers! We then drove a little further and made it to Byron Bay and found a campsite for the night - not the best we've stayed at but we're gonna try another one tonight.
So today, we're taking it easy and going to see what's around the town. We're looking to stay here for about another 3/4 days and then we'll head further north. We've made good time as we've done 1000km's already and we have 2000 more to do in like 4 weeks. We're hoping to have a surf lesson here and by the end of it they guarantee that you'll be riding waves! Woo hoo
Anyway, I reckon that's about it. The sun is shining and it's lovely and hot here so I'm gonna go get me a tan coz it's already faded since Fiji! G'day 
