Byron bay to Port Macquarie

We went up to the lighthouse at Byron Bay in the morning. There are amazing views of the coastline from here and you can stand at the most eastern point of Australia. We sadly drove away from our favorite bay in Byron which was called Wategos bay and headed off to Lennox heads. We had suddenly realised that we needed to move a little faster to get to Sydney for the 27th Aug flight to Fiji! Lennox heads was a smaller quieter version of Byron Bay, well worth a little detour. Writing this is quite hard as we have been to so many places and not done much in each of those places! Later that afternoon we went to Ballina, not much to report here we just sat by the river. We purchased a $5 chess set, Michelle's temper in this game is disgusting as when she looses, she goes mental! I don't think she can accept that I am the chess master! Maybe its because I didn't do very well in my GCSE's!

That night we stayed at a gorgeous little rest stop on the highway called Little Italy. We lit a camp fire which lasted about 2 minutes (needed Ange's guiding expertise on this!). We had a lush meal of chicken escallops in wraps with salad before hitting the sack about 8pm. We are averaging about 12 hours sleep (ridiculous!) Think we are slowly turning into koalas! It was a nice free stop and quiet and safe.

I had a run in the morning and almost collided with a kangaroo, and got partly chased by 2 Alsatians and accidentally scared some horses! Then after a wash in the sink with kettle boiled water we headed to Yamba. In Yamba we didn't do much as usual and chilled by the beach playing chess and I cleaned up the game once again! Then we headed to Grafton, wasn't much to do here we pikied some free McDonalds wifi and some water from a day stop and then b*****ed off! Didn't sleep too well that night as we were about 2 meters from the main road and the road trains seemed to be never ending, but still better than paying $36 per night!

The next day we headed to Wooli and had a gorgeous 5 mile beach all to ourselves, whilst Mishee built sand castles, I sat in my chair getting my tan on and gave Carlos a well earned bath! Then we headed to Coffs harbour, beautiful place, reminded me of the Gower in South Wales. We watched some locals catch some big waves, had a nice long walk and took some cheesy jump photos on the beach. Mishee did some somersaults and tore her lovely skirt that she bought in Vietnam (gutted!). We then headed over 100km south in the evening, pulled up to a rest stop, put a pizza on the BBQ when a security guy approached us and advised us to go elsewhere as there was a lot of car theft (almost every night) in the area. So we quickly jumped into Carlos and sped off to our overnight stop. We stayed at a rest stop just south of Kempsey, this was a little quieter and we tried to finish our pizza off but it was awful, so went to bed on empty tummies.

Today we headed into port Macquarie, which was a place formed in 1821 as a place of hard labour for those convicts who re-offended after being sentenced to Sydney, it was the 3rd town to be established on the Australian mainland). I went for a wicked run around the town, I am actually enjoying running for the first time in my life! And am getting fitter and fitter, but showering in public showers is starting to annoy me a little (always freezing!). Then we watched a surfing competition and headed to the Koala Hospital. This place is amazing, volunteers work here treating sick or injured koalas, we had a great little tour and spoke to the helpful volunteers to learn even more about these gorgeous creatures. We donated some change and left with a huge smile on our faces, definitely worth a visit. Sorry its a bit of a boring blog, and there is not much to report, but trying to save our pennies for Fiji and enjoy the free activities until Sydney. Only 400km to Sydney, if anyone has any suggestions where we could park the van in Sydney please let us know.

Love Ads and Mish xx