A couple of hours drive up the east coast and we were in Hervey Bay. As part of the package we have a night in a hostel either side of the trip to Fraser. We met up with Rose and spent the evening chatting to people that were also leaving tomorrow. 5am the next morning we were up, showered and ready to leave. During the safety debrief we were told there was a chance to skydive onto the island...after a lot of urming and arghing Rose and I (Sal) decided to give i...

Oh.my.god...nice food, lovely family company, a bed that is in a different room to where you drive...after 4 weeks of living in the Spaceship we had forgotten just how good these things can feel! Our first stop was with the McDades; Jen's Australian 2nd, 3rd and 4th cousins! Jen hadn't met some of them before but they were all so welcoming and generous to both of us, we felt at home straight away. Ben took us out the one day to see some sights and for a Cold Rock...

After what seemed like a long time on the road we were glad to get to Byron Bay where we would spend the next 5 days. The first couple of days we spent relaxing on the beach and wandering around the town. We drove to the airport to pick Rose up; a friend we've met in Sydney, through Ed. We were very excited to have someone else with us for a few days, but not quite as excited as a lady at the airport who was obviously waiting for her boyfriend to arrive (look at ...

After speaking to some people at the eco-friendly backpacker campsite when we were in Port Stephens we decided we definitely wanted to go inland a little and drive along Waterfall Way, Armidale to Dorrigo. As you have probably guessed there has been an on-going theme in our trip so far to not do things logically or in order...so why change? It was actually us being sensible on this occasion in that the 140 km road we needed to travel on from Port Macquarie to Arm...

We had a change of plan and decided not to go to Hunter Valley. It would have meant going back on ourselves and we didn't really have time to see it properly as well as some other places before we were due to meet Rose in Byron Bay, so instead off we went to Port Macquarie. Sal has been wanting to find an ice cream parlour called Cold Rock since Christie mentioned one months ago in Thailand! It's not just any ice cream parlour though, it's one with loads of diff...