December 12th to December 16th

Day 26- Kingscliff to Byron Bay (59km)

Basically you can't leave Kingscliff. Well not so much Kingscliff but the region, Tweed Heads. We headed out the main road in Kingscliff and happened upon a roundabout. This roundabout had three exits all of which said Tweed Heads none said Pacific Highway which we were looking for. We took a chance and sped off down the middle road. We drove for about 5 minutes and could see through the bushes and trees the Pacific Highway. Right we thought; let's continue driving, pretty much in parallel with the road until there's an on ramp. As we continued the road started getting further away and hopes of a kindling of spirits faded. We then somehow ended up a steep hill entering a forest type environment. This can't be right we thought, we turned around and drove back to the island. Now before you start thinking were just incompetent navigators who can't read maps you need to stop right there. Melanie has exceptional 'pigeon like' navigation and Declan has an 'orienteering badge' from his time as a beaver. It is our maps and the sheer scale of the country that is hindering us. The big cities are on the maps with the motorways, Small towns are mentioned with some main roads. Everything else is just guess work. We drove now down the road that we thought should lead us to the motorway. After driving past 'Exotic Fruit World' a theme park for fruit enthusiasts we finally were where we wanted to be. We drove for about an hour before taking our exit towards Byron.

Upon entering Byron we noticed the main road was littered with hitchhikers holding up various signs. Most of the hitchers were 'traveller' travellers and none of them looked particularly clean, not a very good advert for a potential person giving them a lift we mused. We found a lovely little campsite just outside of town, parked the van and headed into the centre. Byron seems like a really relaxed town, nobody's moving at any sort of pace. The streets are filled with different types of music coming from the abundance of buskers. The main town was really busy considering it is not a very large place. The majority of people there were backpackers lurking around doing very little. We headed up the main road and its steep hill until we found the beach. The whole beach was full of people sunbathing and we managed to find our own little space. After a while we were getting hot and decided to take a dip to cool off. Oh no, we were told. The sea is off limits for people unless they are surfing. Apparently because the waves are so good, surfers have to ride them. Surfers and swimmers don't mix and accidents occur frequently so they just banned the swimmers. Not a problem we thought, our lovely little campsite has its own pool. Back there for a read and a swim.

Because we had had such a hard day at the office we thought we would eat out for our dinner. The whole of Byron is full of little chip shops and takeaways and we were getting pretty bored of cooking for ourselves. What to have was the next conundrum. Declan found a lovely little place that offered the delights of a mixed kebab. Now this would be the first since leaving home that he would have, and as we all know, the standard of kebab in Brumtown is second to none. The kebab was delicious, not up there with Shirley K but it worked. The random inclusion of cheese also kind of worked. Mel went further a field and found a fresh fish and chip shop right on the beach. She also loved her dinner and the batter and the chips were made to order and exceptionally fresh.

Happy with our dinner we strolled around the town until it was time for a drink back at the van. At the van, parked on a site in the darkness of Oz we suddenly had a visitor. Terry as he called himself just popped his head through the curtains much to our surprise. "Wanna learn to surf?" he grunted. "D'ya know what Terry, we do!" And we booked up for the following day.

Day 27- Byron

We're getting slightly fed up of every bird in the world deciding to start singing right outside our van. Today was no exception and we were woken early but refused to play ball. We wanted a lie in and by God we were getting one. After we headed into town and again sat by the beach. Around lunch time we funnily enough headed back to the van to get some lunch. Our surfing lesson was for the afternoon so we made sure we ate well. As we waited outside our site for Terry to swing by we got chatting to another couple who were also learning to surf.

After a short drive to the beach, while picking up other hopeful surfers we all got to meet Terry again. Terry bills himself and the 'surfing Steve Irwin' and to be fair to him he does have passion for his sport. He starts dishing out the wetsuits and we umm and ahh about whether we'll need one. After much deliberation we do. Mel starts pulling on her wetsuit only to get to the stage where it needs zipping up to realise it's on inside out! After, Terry starts dishing out the boards. Now with us all being novices, we get extra large boards. Declan's must have been 10 foot long and Mel's about 8 foot!! Down on the beach we run through the 'how to surf' spiel. We were taught the 4 step guide to standing up and surfing. Step 1, push up on arms. Step 2, bring your knees forward. Step 3, position your feet. Finally step 4, stand up. While practicing this on the beach we all looked and acted like it was a piece of cake. Trouble is, the beach doesn't move if you push down on it, out on the water it was a lot trickier.

So we strap our boards to our leg so they don't float away, lie down on them and start paddling out like crazy into the oncoming waves. We paddled out until we were about 20ft away from the beach, the water is still about waist height but the tide is coming in fast. So we basically had time against us. Learn fast or when the big waves start coming you'll be on your ass. Terry split the group in two and we went off with our instructor, Jock, who would get us started. Jock basically held our board in place while searching for a wave to push us on to. First up was some German girls then Dec. Jock grabbed his board, told him that he'd need to paddle till he felt the board lift, then do the 4 steps. In comes the waves, Deccy starts paddling, up he goes in one great move and...........along the wave he rides!!!!! After about 10 meters the board slows and he falls on his ass, but it was a start. Next up was Melanie. Off she goes paddling, the waves catches her and up she goes. Along the waves she rides for alot further than 10 meters until her board slows, and in she goes.

After the second and third attempts that seem to be worse for Dec, he changes his footing, Melanie on the other hand is going further and further along the crest of the waves. After Jock feels we have the hang of it we wade out further into the bigger waves. He explains how we should pick them and how to launch ourselves into them. For about an hour we were picking and riding waves all the way into shore, swimming back out and doing it again. It really was amazing. Declan was thinking he was Keanu Reeves in Point Break, and Melanie was dispelling her 'bambi leg' status with every surf.

All was going well until disaster struck.

A huge wave came in just as we were both trying to talk to each other. The wave knocked us off our feet and Dec's board swung around and hit Melanie right on her head. Melanie being a trooper took a few minutes out and then came back to surf, bringing her bump with her. We continued surfing for about another hour before it started getting really rough. The sun was heading down and we were all getting hungry. Surfing is a hunger inducing sport!

After dinner we fell asleep totally shattered.

Day 28- Byron to Coffs Harbour (240km)

The drive down to Coffs Harbour was very scenic. We passed quite a few small forests that we knew were home to koalas. We knew this because all overhead as we were driving down the highway we were looking up at the Koala bridges. There are two types of these, some are just a large bridge over the highway, like you would see on a motorway except instead of it having another road going across, it is covered in trees. Like a kind of forest bridge. The other koala bridges were just rope ladders stretching from one side to the next, and then tied off on two trees. We were hoping to see a koala mid way across but it wasn't our day.

Still keeping with the trend of Aussie creek calling Declan has now named every creek we have crossed for over 2000km. All his efforts to get Mel to join in have been in vain, but it keeps him happy on the long journeys. Another thing that we both find amusing is the random names they call roads, and also the Aussie obsession with having large plastic fruit in every one of their towns. Anyway back to the road names, a particular highlight was driving past a road called 'bald knob'. Speaking of bald k*** , a very happy birthday to our friend Joel. Haha.

When we arrived in Coffs Harbour, we snapped a picture of the 'Big Banana' adorning the roadside and went to find a place to stay. Surprisingly we found an amazing place to stay that had pretty much everything anyone would want. This included a jumping pillow!!! The jumping pillow was a giant bouncy castle type pillow stuck in the ground with a roof on it. The pillow was about 20foot long and clearly meant for kids. Not being ageist we thought we'd give it a go, displacing the 4 little girls that were there having a bounce. A large sign on the side read' no acrobatics' so not wanting to disappoint, we ignored it and that's exactly what we did. When we finally realised that there were children waiting to play but scared of jumping on while we were there, we left. As we were walking off we heard the familiar sound of a child crying. Obviously they had seen a certain someone doing a flip and tried to copy it with miserable results. Lesson to all children out there, don't copy Declan, he's a giant fool.

After the pillow fun we headed off to the pool. The pool had animals firing water, a lighthouse with a slide in it, and two big waterslides, again meant for kids. Who are we to adhere to such silly rules? We headed for the slides and got some dubious looks when we surfaced in the splash pool at the bottom. Just to make sure everyone was appalled with our childish behaviour; Declan went and slid down the toddler sized lighthouse slide, sounding off a loud "weeeeee" as he landed. When everyone had finally stopped staring at us we went and acted our age by reading a book by the pool and taking in the rays.

Later in the camp kitchen we watched our first bit of telly in months. Sadly it wasn't Neighbours or Home and Away but it passed the night while we ate some juicy meatballs.

Day 29- Coffs Harbour.

As we are edging ever closer to Sydney with each passing day, we are staying in fewer places for more days. Today was another Coffs Harbour day. Now aside from the shopping centre and the beach there isn't much else to do here. Its just a normal city. We opted then for a beach day. The waves again were really high on the beach and the lifeguards imposed a 'waist only' swim rule. The surfers were busy at their end of the beach and we settled on the other. After literally 2 minutes, every insect in the known universe descended on Melanie and made her life unbearable. Sod this we thought, let's go lie by the riverside 30 meters up the road, and that's what we did, for about 3 hours.

We treated ourselves to a subway for lunch while we bought some fresh burgers from the butchers. In the afternoon we ran riot again at the pool. Or at least we wanted to, the slides however were shut down for maintenance, hopefully not caused by us. We settled for just relaxing in the pool.

Back at the van we met the couple, Maria and Stephen, from our surfing in Byron again. Were basically one day in front of them so were trading info on places to go. The four of us then had a BBQ dinner with some goon. As they are 'roughing it' in a tent we had them over to the van to watch a film before we all headed off to bed.

Day 30- Coffs Harbour to Port Macquarie (162km)

Five days left in the van and the tunes are pumping as we headed down to Port Macquarie. Not so fresh faced after a night on the goon we head off down the highway. This stretch of road had about 30 speed cameras on it and we are in the business of not getting any more speeding fines. Yes, you have read it right; we have already accrued a speeding ticket, saying we, it was Melanie that got the last one. The ticket in question was from our first days in the van and we only found out about it in Byron. Speeding is taken very seriously in Oz and the email we were sent will be printed and framed when we return as the fine is for $733!!!!!!!!!!!That isn't the amount we'll pay though so don't start organising a collection. As our van is technically a company car the penalties are higher, but once the company tell them it was us it'll go down to around the normal amount.

Anyway back on the road, were driving like model citizens, this even includes winding up the people behind us as we slow for every signpost with a number on it. Even though we were doing all this however we still got pulled over. Not pulled over in a bad way, more of being asked to enter a lay by by a policeman. He was incredibly nice and asked for all the routine stuff. He them asked Melanie, the driver, to count to five in his special hand gizmo. Melanie instinctively reverted to the British method of blowing on the device. The copper, looking slightly bemused, repeated again that he just wanted her to count to five into the device. Obviously she passed the test and we were on our way.

Driving along happily, we came across the town of Kempsey. Kempsey is famous for making the legendary 'akubra' hat. That doesn't mean anything to anybody, unless however you knew that the 'akubra' is the hat that Mick 'Crocodile' Dundee wears. Foolishly the people of Kempsey haven't jumped on this bandwagon and the factory isn't open to the public and there isn't a crocodile Dundee souvenir in sight. The fools we thought. We stopped in the local park for our lunch and snapped a peculiar sign (see photos).

Oddly there wasn't a large fruit to greet us on our entrance to Port Macquarie; we did however cross over Christmas Creek, which was proclaimed by all in the van in loud Aussie tone. We found a site for the van and headed to the info centre. As it was a Sunday night we noticed that the local observatory was open for viewings and presentations. We decided to go to that when it obviously got dark, so first we went to the pool and finished our books while Melanie taught the local children some manners!

Later we headed out to the observatory. We had visions of it being a large structure like you would see in a film. It was unexpectedly tiny in comparison to what we hoped (see photo). We waited till it was dark and then joined the other 20 people waiting for a look at the stars. First off we had a look at the moon in amazing detail. We were then sat in the auditorium for a presentation. A dude called Kevin handed around a ridiculously heavy piece of meteorite while spouting incorrect knowledge about its and our origins, this peeved one member of the team, any guesses for who. After Kevin left, a very sweet old man, who looked a little like Rolf Harris then attempted to tell us everything he had ever learned about space. He went on for a while but he meant well and told us alot of stuff. We then headed back to the telescope which had been repositioned to face Jupiter. We got a great view of Jupiter and could even see its distinctive ribbons of colour, and 4 of its many moons (63 in case anyone wondered). After with it being late we headed back to our site and went to bed.

3109KM down the east coast, 5 more days with our beloved van, and then it's Sydney for Christmas.