We spent most of the day Friday exploring Coffs Harbour, its beaches and jetty. It was a lovely place in the sun with great places to chill with a picnic looking out at the sea, beach and harbour. We went to see this 'Big Bannana' that was one of the touristy 'things to do/see' that we were told used to have an indoor ski slope but someone defrosted the snow and it was too expensive to replace so they had to change it into an ice rink, bowling alley etc. So as you can imagine we were really excited to see it. So we drove about 10 minutes out of the city to find the 'Banana'...oh dear, we were so disappointed. It wasn't a "big" banana in the slightest especially when I was expecting to see a big building made to look like a banana. It was a tiny banana. So we got out the car took a photo and moved on without dwelling too much! As usual we stopped off in Coles (Australia's main supermarket alongside Woolworths) to buy some lunch and decided to eat it in the Botanical Garderns. When we arrived there were about 100 cars parked outside...and we soon discovered that people were in the park to see a music concert. Firstly, they let us walk straight in the back stage area even though it was cornered off; I saw a normal looking guy walk out through the fences so I just walked in between them too and the girls followed. I wasn't stopped by anyone at the fence or anything, they didn't do a very good job on duty just letting 4 random girls with tons of shopping bags walk straight through. I guess I just looked like I knew what I was doing and where i was going J hehe foolish lads ey. Once we made our way to the audience section, we set up base and tucked into our yoghurt, museli and fruit (we're all trying to be good with food at the moment - well Julia and I are, Krissy eats everything and anything in front of her, even dried pasta from the day before she is worse than me, I'm so glad I found someone like me or should I say mum more like! Haha. Lisa also eats a great deal - she doesn't really snack but when it comes to dinner time she can literally eat 3 big main means, she piles her first plate which I think wow she won't get through that, and the next minute I look round and there she is already serving up her second portion! And what'ss annoying is she is the slimmest of us all! Always they way ey! We cook for about 6-8 people every night and I tell you us 4 girls sure get through it no problem at all. Julia and I are trying to cut back so not eating as much as the other two.) So anyway back to the Botanical Gardens, we ended up listening to some heavy metal music - I don't think we arrived at the best time unfortunately, but it was cool to have some music whilst enjoying our food. The concert was free to anyone up to the age of 25 to promote "Health"...even though they were giving away FREE Ben & Jerrys ice cream, yea really healthy. But of course I didn't refuse free food, so I had a little pot of Cookie Dough YUM. We packed up and headed to Belligen, a small town further in land. We went to the information centre to find out what we could do there. The kind lady at the information told us a place where we could camp for free just 15 minutes away so we headed there set up camp in Thora, cooked a lush Lentil stew in the dark by a park bench. It was a little challenging preparing the food as we just had Lisa's head torch as knowone else owns one (Krissy does but it's at the bottom of her bag at the bottom of the pile in the car). We ended up chilling there for the rest of the night playing Never Have I Ever, which was rather interesting :)

The next day we were up and set off for a 3 hour walk in Dorrigo National Park just 10 minutes from camp. Whatever time we get up at, weather its 6am or 8am, we always seem to leave at 10am but it seems to work for us all so its all good. We usually have showers, spend an hour enjoying a good breakfast (last few days we have had eggs on toast, yummy), pack the tents away and re-pack the car. It usually takes about 3 hours in total but we have a system that seems to work well. We started off with a walking tour by a ranger who explained a bit about the area and pointed out some interesting things to look out for in the forest. The trees are incredible here; all kinds of shapes and sizes. We went past two big waterfalls, and of course stopped for some photos. Now I'm not sure I have explained the photo situation here but Krissy and Julia can never just take a couple of photos. Every time we find somewhere that is beautiful, they will start adjusting their clothes, doing their hair and pretty much start a full on photo shoot, posing in all kinds of ways. It is funny to watch, but it is starting to bug me as Lisa and I usually end up waiting for them so we can move on. I can tolerate most things, but it does get a little repetitive. Like how many nice photos do you want of yourself. It is nice to have some good photos for facebook profile and printing at the end of the journey, but what are you going to do with so many good photos? I like using photos as a memory bank, and remembering what I got up to, who I travelled with and also to keep everyone updated back home what mischief I get into J It's definitely a passion of Krissys, she really could go professional because the photos she creates are incredible, and she can spend all day with the camera in hands without a doubt! Anyway, back to the day. The girls don't like Lisa and I walking fast (yey, I have found someone who walks my pace!) but they managed to keep up, even if they were sweating and panting a little more. Hehe. We arrived back at the car about 2pm, had some quick lunch and headed on to Grafton. Did I mention the drives have been very scenic, really beautiful, full of lush green trees, grass, blue sky and unbelievable sunsets.

Sunday morning I was up at 6am, went for a 25 minute jog and saw a kangaroo, then did Davina boxercise with Julia. We had breakfast and we were actually out of the camp site by 9.30am! Record time! We headed to Big W where I purchased a pillow )as I am getting frustrated not being able to sleep properly) and then we did a food shop. We didn't look around Grafton as there didn't seem to be much there. Our next destination was Yamba...we pulled up at a beach and got chatting to an old couple who said that the flooding and storms they had a few weeks ago destroyed the beach and swept all the sand away. It used to be beautiful white sand but now its covered in sticks, washed up dead animals, its really sad to see. They told us to go to Angurie, which was a 5 minute drive south. It was stunning here with two blue pools where you could jump off the cliff, and the surfers were enjoying the waves. I took a stroll to the hill and then we had a picnic!

We passed through Evans Head and Broadwater National Park and then Lisa's wonderful sat nav decided to take us a "scenic" route along the river. It really was beautiful and the houses were huge here, I wanted to stop and see if they would let us stay but no one had the courage to. Unfortuately the sat nav (which keeps loosing gps signal - Lisa is seriously considering a divorce, they keep arguing too so I have to calm her down) decided to take us to South Ballina which was literally a point in the sea and we only realised this when we were at the very tip of the land and couldn't go any further! Ops. It was a right chuckle, we couldn't believe it and what was even more unbelievable was that the bridge that we thought we drive across to get us to the real Ballina was miles away, back on the road that we drove on for about an hour!! We tried following the sat nav again, and he decided to take us into the National Park entrance which led us to a sand track to the beach...he really was testing our patience. As we were on our way back we drove past a opening to the water which had a sign saying 'ferry' so we decided to check it out...and to our relief it took us to the main land Ballina YIPEEE. I was excited that we didn't have to drive all the way back, but Lisa was more excited with the fact that she was going to drive onto a ferry! In fact, she got so excited that when we got off the other side (let's just mention here that the ferry was $4 and took 2 minutes to get from one side to the other) she ended up driving into the roundabout, rather than around the roundabout! Luckily we had a nice big 4x4 wheels that could handle the big kurb!

The rest of the evening wasn't much fun as we ended up driving around over 9 different campsites to find a decent looking and cheapish place to camp but they were all charging between $40 and $70 which in a backpackers mind is way too expensive! I thin we would have taken the $40 camp but it looked so doggy as if we may have been murdered if we stayed there, and some of the other campsites even said don't go there because they are where all the druggies go so glad we took the decision to avoid that one. We ended stopping at the Information centre that was closed but the cleaner was there and she grabbed some leaflets for us and suggested another camp site to check out. We eventually found it after a few wrong turnings but it was also really expensive so we decided to drive on...and on...and went to a few more camp sites on our way up the coast.

Eventually we ended up back at a campsite just outside of Byron Bay. It was 9pm by this time and we had all had enough. It was $15 dollars per person but we didn't have any other choice. The office was closed but it had a sign saying that you can just set up camp and pay in the morning, so we did. We were all too tired for dinner, so we ended up munching on cereal and bread before jumping into bed. The grass was already wet by this time L - that's the only bad thing about camping at this time of year, because we wake up and it's so damp everywhere. Everything is dry by about 9am, but when you need the toilet early in the morning it's not fun! I watched One Day on my tablet and enjoyed Lisa's water bottle for half an hour whilst she was on the phone outside - it was luxury!

In the morning (22nd April) we got up, had breakfast, showers and here we are sat on our camping chairs, painting our nails, Lisa and Julia were sewing, we did some washing, Julia cleaned out the car...and the sun is shining! We are just about to go and make risotto now, the dinner we planned to make last night. We are doing a German way of dining as apparently their biggest meal is at lunch time, so we are going to have dinner at lunch time...that's all good with me :)