On Monday 6th April we left Byron (on a dry morning thank goodness!) and headed about 70 miles south to a little fishing town called Yamba. It's not a must stop destination with backpackers yet but with a new YHA hostel which opened in December and great surf beaches, Yamba is slowly becomming a place to stop on the east coast as many people have described to us its what 'Byron used to be like 15 years ago!'

The Greyhound dropped us off the the Scottish town of MaClean (10miles down the road) and we caught the local bus into Yamba. Its pretty much a tiny place with a few shops, restuarants and shops. Lots of prawn fishing and lots of camping shops all set along a cross road section, both about 50m in length. Very quaint and peaceful town, first impressions were good!

We settled into our campsite really close to the town and right on the edge of the Clarence River and just chilled in the afternoon having a browse around the shops and checking out a couple of the cove beaches towards the north of the town.

On Tuesday we woke up to a few showers and overcast weather, not to worry though, we first went for a run along the riverbank which was very pretty and then enjoyed taking a walk out to the river wall and looking over the choppy ocean. Because of the heavy rain down this way last week sea has turned very murky, especially when combined with the big river mouth water gushing out. They have a cute little lighthouse perched on top of a little hill which has been in operation since the 1850's.

We relaxed by the pool in the afternoon, however it was a little too cool for swimming and in the evening we decided to treat ourselves to a meal at an italian called Sassafro's. It was great value for money and we had some big yummy portions of pizza and pasta! It was BYO wine so we thoroughly enjoyed an early birthday meal!!

The weather improved on Wednesday, so we took a walk to Yamba's biggest beach, Pippi's. A huge stretch of practically deserted sand and plenty of crashing waves! We tried to do a bit of sunbathing but the wind was very gusty so after a stroll along the beach we decided to walk over the headland which gave us brilliant views of the beach and try to find some shelter at the cove beaches around the corner!

Walking along the rocky path we were looking into the ocean and I spotted something in the water, straight away we realised it was a pod of dolphins breeching on the surface about 20m off shore!!!! Waaaah, our first sighting of wild dolphins in the Pacific, we were so happy! We must of sat on the rocks in the sun for a good hour just watching them breech to the surface and do a few jumps and flips every now and then! We tried to get some good pics but it was really difficult to guess when they'd jump, but we got a few special ones!!

We eventually walked over to Covent Beach and sunbathed for a bit, the sun still shining and the dolphins still in view. The tide was slowly going out making it easier for us and the other people on the beach to get a bit closer to the dolphins! We both swam out quite far (first time i've not been able to touch the floor in shark infested waters eek!) But as the myth goes, 'if theres dolphins, there are no sharks!'.....we hope!! We coulc both see them and were only about 10-15m away, one popped up really close to Darren and he says he had an eye to eye moment with him! haha! There were about 10 dolphins all together and it will definately be something we treasure forvever, especially as we wern't expecting it!!! Was a great morning!

We chilled out by the pool in the afternoon and had a cracking sunset over the hinterland and river in the evening, it was beautiful. A bbq dinner topped off the day - one of our best days yet!

On Thursday we woke up to a lot of heavy unexpected rain, especially since the day before was glorious and 3am the moon and stars were shining bright. So we didnt really get up to much on this day. We bought some internet hours at the Sound Room Cafe and ended the afternoon by going to their tiny little cinema to see Sean Penn in 'Milk' (Good film.) It was like a little village hall, very cute!

We left on Friday which was Good Friday and a public holiday. We had to catch the bus back to MaClean for our Greyhound and in the rain made our way to the bus stop around 10.30. Walking to the bus stop we realised it was a bank holiday and the buses might not run as usual and guess what......they didnt. We'd missed the only morning bus to MaClean at 9.30am and a taxi for the 10 mile journey was going to cost us $40...ouch! Our bus was'nt till 12.30pm so we had 2 hours to figure out how to get to MaClean. We asked the hostel if they were going to pick anyone up or if they would give us a lift but they wouldnt, so yep you guessed it.....we started to walk and stuck our thumbs out!!

The rain had stopped so we were grateful for that, so we walked to the main exit road out of Yamba and thumbed for about 15 minutes with no luck! Neither of us have hitched before and I dont know about Darren but I was hating doing it!!!! Daz walked over to a hotel and got a piece of paper and in big letters wrote MACLEAN, so we held that up for about 5 mins before a car pulled up with a family of 3 inside and offered us a ride to the bus stop. It turns out they were such lovely people (Ian, Sherre and their 15yr old daughter Jade) We talked non stop all the way there about our travels, the Yamba area and the UK. They even took us up to the MaClean lookout point on the big hill before the bus station but the rain had started up again and it was foggy so we couldnt really see the views, but the thought was there. It was a great free ride and we saved the bus money which ment we treated ourselves to a nicer lunch!!!!

We hopped on the Greyhound en-route to Port Macquarie (200km down the road but 4 half hours on the bus with stops in between!)

We had a lovely time in Yamba, just a shame we didnt have slightly better weather. Fingers crossed for my birthday and Easter weekend. We're looking forward to it! xxxx