Coffs Harbour: Sunday 2nd January - Wednesday 5th January

We were pretty sad to leave Sydney after such an awesome couple of weeks with great people so wherever we moved onto had a tough act to follow. We arrived in Coffs early on the Monday morning with Sophie, Aimee and Lisa and had a little tour in the Aussitel hostel bus whilst half asleep. We couldn't check in so all napped on the sofas in the lounge area whilst waiting. A lazy day was definitely called for so we treated ourselves to some awesome fish and chips before lazing on the beach. The thing to do in Coffs Harbour is to jump off the jetty but we didn't want to do it that day, not realising we wouldn't go back to the beach again. Oops! Coffs itself is a very small place, there is one main street with a few shops, one bar and once club, some botanical gardens (which we weren't particularly interested in after seeing Sydney's), and a couple of beaches. Our hostel wasn't bad, we pretty much had our own room, there was a nice little pool where we played some water volleyball (not advisable in a bikini), a cosy lounge area, but a bit of a s***ty kitchen with flies everywhere. Oh well, sometimes as backpackers you have to put up with these things. Maybe I won't be so much of a germ-a-phobe when I get back.

Australia is also known (by some people) for its large objects that are in various parts of the country. These are items such as a large pineapple, welly boot, orange, kangaroo etc etc. Coffs Harbour is known for its Big Banana. We decided we'd walk out there to see what the fuss was all about thinking it would be really cool, after a mammoth walk along the Pacific Highway we finally reached the Big Banana only to find out that it isn't so big after all. When we get a decent and cheap internet connection we will hopefully upload some pictures to prove this. It is also surrounded by an ice rink, toboggan run and lots of things to occupy the kids on a day out. On the plus side we didn't get to see candy being made and taste it for free! The walk back was much nicer as we took the coastal route, spotting huge lizards that looked like snakes, rats and hundreds of blue bottle jellyfish washed up on the beach. Eek!

Coffs Harbour is a nice little place where we were forced to chill out after a busy couple of weeks in Sydney, and although we enjoyed, you wouldn't miss out on much if you bypass it.