Another sunny day in Port Macquarie, so another trip to the beach for us. We also wanted to visit the koala hospital in town and had been told that the best time to go was at 3pm when they feed the koalas and also give a free tour. We decided to go to a different beach today (one of the nine along the coast nearby!) so headed to Flynn's Beach as this was nearer the hospital. We packed our bags and our sandwiches and started walking; however we soon realised it w...

Early alarm call for us today…5:30am felt like the middle of the night! We managed to crawl out of bed and got ourselves to the bus station for 7am. The journey was pretty uneventful; the bus had awful gears and didn't get above 80kph, even on the 110kph motorway and we made an unnecessary 45-minute stop at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere, but that was about it! We arrived in warm, sunny Port Macquarie at about 1pm and our free pickup to our hostel w...

New Year's Day in Sydney…don't think much happens - well, we certainly didn't do much! We woke up late, with bad heads, and went up to the roof terrace to celebrate English New Year at 11am - so we did get to see the incredible view from the top at New Year, it was just the wrong New Year, and there weren't any fireworks! Dave was feeling hungry so he ventured out to find a Subway while I went back to sleep. We didn't really get up to much all day and I didn't ...

Today was the last day of 2011 and we were planning on seeing it out with a big celebration at Circular Quay and watching the famous fireworks at midnight…along with over a million other people all wanting to do the same thing! We had a lie-in, then headed for the shops to pick up some food and goon (a kind of cheap wine in a box - not the best quality but brilliant value! $12 for 5 litres!), then back to the hostel to cook. Our party at the Paragon Hotel star...

Today was our last chance to do 'touristy' things before leaving Sydney on 2nd Jan - tomorrow is New Year's Eve and we've written off New Year's Day as we think we'll be a bit worse for wear! First on the agenda was to visit Susanah Place museum, across the road from the hostel, which is a row of 3 terrace houses that haven't been touched since they were built when The Rocks was first populated. They are small 2-up, 2-down houses and the museum has furnished the...