Hello everyone,

On 24th September we got back on the greyhound in Sydney ready for our trip to Coffs Harbour. We had to walk through Kings Cross just before 6am so we saw some interesting people falling out of the clubs. The trip took over 8 hours, so another long journey of listening to the iPod and gazing out of the window (and listening to Ryan going on about bikes). When we arrived we got a lift to our accommodation. This time we stayed at a motel which was slightly butlins-esque but really nice and right on the beach. For the rest of the afternoon and evening we had a little walk on the beach, went to the shops and ate in the restaurant at the motel.

We woke up the next day to pretty grey, grotty weather. We walked up into the town where we looked around a load of surf shops and had lunch. We then went for a walk along the boardwalk through the mangroves by the river and then along by the harbour and up on to Mutton Bird Island nature reserve. From there we got some beautiful views across the harbour and the coastline. Ryan pointed out to sea saying he could see a whale, I told him he was being silly and it was just a wave hitting a rock. Anyway, it did actually turn out to be a humpback whale! We ended up seeing about 4 or 5 including one swimming along with a calf by its side. Apparently it was the time of year when the whales migrate south. We could see them swim along the surface for a while blowing water out of their blow holes and then diving down for a while before reappearing again. It was so exciting to see them and a big surprise! We ended up having a great day and the weather turned out to be half decent in the end. We also saw bush turkeys for the first time which we thought were such funny things, we were to see many many more of these on the rest of our trip in Oz.

On the 26th we had half a day to spend before heading back to the bus station. We walked out onto the beach to see probably the roughest sea I've ever seen. It was surprising as it had been so calm the day before although there had been a storm during the night. We had a nice little walk along the coast where we watched the waves smashing along the rocks. In the afternoon we got a lift back to the bus station ready for our next trip!

Lots of love,

Jo and Ryan xxx