18th feb - a 4hour bus journey North of Newcastle - i was hoping the weather would have improved. Got chatting to two girls on the coach - Bex from England, and Sion from Wales - we were all booked into Ozzie Pozzie backpackers and on arrival were allocated the same room. We seemed to hit it off straight away - we spent the evenging watching tv and chatting.

19th feb - Today i went bodyboarding with Bex and Sion - we carried the boards to town beach but waves were non existent so we walked round to the next beach and it was really rocky so we returned to Town beach only to notice that its actually closed. We asked some policemen on bikes where the best place to go and they said Flynns beach - this involved walking along the coast a couple of kms - we eventually arrived at the beach and there was plenty of surf - the waves were perfect.....not too big or too small. After an hour in the water we got out to sunbathe and the headed in for some more waves later. After bodyboarding we walked to the koala hospital - as we were given an antroductory talk, a koala was brought into the emergency vet surgery - it had been attacked by a dog - we saw the vet shave some of its fur in order to see the full extent of the injuries - luckily this koala didnt have any life threatening injuries and was expected to make a full recovery. Some of the koalas at the hospital have been there for years. We went round all the 'wards' and heard each koalas story and watched them being fed. On our way back to the hostel we stopped off at the bottle-o for some supplies for later. It was pizza night at the hostel so we had pizza with everyone else - we spent the evening drinking with 2 aussies - Lochie and Murphy from Canberra - we played drinking games until 11pm (lights out time - crappy hostel rule) so we continued drinking on the street but not quite the same so called it a night.

20th feb - Today we decided to hire bikes from the hostel and cycle to the Sea Acres rainforest centre which was about 5km away. The road we took was the hilliest road ever - we pushed the bikes up a couple of them (the bikes were proper old school and had no gears and to break you had to pedle backwards!) On arriving at the rainforest centre we watched a documentary and cooled down and then were taken on a guided tour along the boardwalks. It was pretty cool learning about all the different trees and what animals etc live off of them. On the way back to the hostel we went past the koala hospital and this route was a lot flatter and a lot quicker/shorter - Sion and i blamed Bex for taking us the hilly route as she was the map reader- not that maps show hills! We mhad a dip in the pool to cool down before making an amazing sausage and mash for tea and then headed out to the Irish bar in town for a couple of drinks but we didnt stay too long - it was mostly full of middle age people- no young people about.

21st feb - Up early as Bex and i had booked ourselves on a surf lesson at 9am. We were so excited but also a little scared. We were lucky as it had turned out to be a beautiful morning without a cloud in they sky. Once on the beach we were split into beginners and non beginners - there were 5 of us in the beginners group - Bex and I, then an 8, 9, 10yr old! which we found rather amusing. We had two instructurs - Jimmy and Josh - they gave us a briefing and showed us how to stand up etc. which we then practiced on the sand (felt like an idoit doing this especially next to little kids who could jump up in one action. anyway after 10mins or so we were in the water. It was really hard to lie on the board let alon stand up as it was really wobbly. Eventually we got the feel for the board which allowed us to go out a bit deeper. It took us a few attempts but in the end we managed to stand up. On one wave we both managed to catch it, stand up and high five - it was pretty funny. Jimmy told us we could go out deeper if we wanted so we did, thinking he would come with us, but he didnt so we sat on our boards looking like we knew what we were dong waiting for the right wave! One of the other instructors Grant, wasnt impressed that we were out so deep on our first lesson so sent us back in - he made sure we caught an awesome wave though. This was the best wave of the day - being out deeper and being on top of the wave rather than catching a wave that has already broken is a lot easier as there is so much power behind the wave. By the end of the lesson we were standing up on every wave - it was great fun. On returning to the hostel we rinsed off in the pool then packed our bags as we were moving on to Coffs Harbour today.