I was sad to be leaving the family behind in Gunnedah at the train station but excited to be heading back to the boys in Newcastle. Barry had organised for me to meet his sister Josephine at the train station in Newcastle. I actually ended up stopping with her and her family (husband Dennis and son Mike) for a few days which was nice. Mike took me on a bit of a pub crawl the first night where we were surprised by the lads who were suppose to be camping up the coast. They had come back to Newcastle with the girls who they had met and been stopping with to surprise me which was cool. After a few days of hanging out with Mike and his brother Luke sampling some of the local beers I joined the boys at the girls house so as not to impose upon Jose an Dennis too much. The next week consisted of some partying in Newcastle. Full of hilarious banter, tomfoolery and a visit to the wildlife park to pat the koalas we had an awesome time. Kate, Pin, Glen (how we love thee), Amy and James were such a cool bunch of people and we subleased ourselves into their heaps happy way of life.

Pins dad used to be a mechanic and kindly pointed us in the right direction for buying a car to get us up the coast. I honestly don't think I have laughed so much in a week as I did in Newcastle but our livers needed respite and we had to head out up to Brisbane to meet back up with Weasel (Owen) who had gone to visit family for Xmas.