Port Macquarie 16th Dec

After what seemed like the longest Greyhound journey – we ended up arriving into Port Macquarie over an hour late, hot and bothered as the air con on board was being rather erratic and there were lots of annoying people on our coach! We had been informed that our hostel had free wifi internet access – ‘great!” we thought, we could finally get up to date with our beloved blog (well as you can probably tell, this did not occur and we were somewhat annoyed!) Internet access has surprised us in oz, we had expected it to be much more readily available, in particular wifi access– unfortunately it is generally very patchy and very expensive!

To get over the annoyance, we busied ourselves by making plans to meet up with Luc and Rick, on a visit to the nearby Koala Hospital!

We had a great time visiting the hospital. Each day at 3pm a free tour of the hospital takes place, wherein we got to meet all the current patients, hear about their ailments, their treatment and future prospects. Its amazing to hear that the hospital is run entirely on donations from the public and all employees work on a volunteer basis! I was definitely tempted to smuggle one of these cute little animals away with me.

As this was likely to be the final time we saw Rick and Luc before they headed further south ahead of us, we decided to have a BBQ with them at the camping ground their hostel was in.

After much entertainment trying to start the BBQ and work out how to prepare our food with limited cutlery (Andy endeavouring to cut a tomato with a plastic knife) we settled down to a yummy meal and evening of card games. Luc and Ricks offering was the ‘fruit’ card game. Sceptical at first of these cards that appeared to be like something from the early learning centre – we were soon hooked, not to mention ridiculously competitive! The final few rounds included inflating an empty ‘goon’ bag (a pungent, potent wine type drink – and basically it stinks!) and using it as the central ‘buzzer’/’button’ to hit! Great fun and a fab way to say farewell to the guys!

We didn’t do a great deal for the rest of our time in Port Macquarie. After stumbling upon an internet cafe we committed ourselves to a bit of an ‘admin day’ - uploading photos, planning ahead, catching up with the blog etc. All in all, time well spent! It was on this ‘admin day’ that I noticed a couple of nasty bites on my leg. Nothing new – i’ve been attacked by flies/mozzies a few times in oz.....but with regard to these bites...watch this space...

Our journey out of Port Mac began in the same way it started..the coach was over an hour late in arriving! This time, we are swapping seats with a couple of familiar faces – Olly and Laura have arrived from Coffs Harbour and are taking our places at the same hostel. After a brief catchup we say our goodbyes, knowing we will be meeting up in Sydney!

Next stop – a familiar name....Newcastle!