After chilling out in Darling Harbour on Monday we went out again with people from the hostel for a drink (or seven) and some dancing. We ended up in Macdonalds at 2am, which is always the sign of a good night. This time I started drinking water before I left so I was completely hangover-free in the morning - thank god seeing as it was our last day in Sydney and I didn't want to waste it by lying in bed. Instead we caught the ferry to Manly Beach where we had lunch at one of the cafes and laid on the beach reading and watching the seagulls. We came back into Sydney harbour just as the sun was going down so we got yet more great views of the bridge and opera house.

As we were packing I discovered I had crushed and killed a huge cockroach when I put my backpack down the other day and it was just laying there staring up at me. I wasn't even surprised; the hostel was filthy. Our duvet smelt of boy-sweat, there was a layer of dust almost half an inch wide wherever the carpet met the walls, there were empty drink bottles underneath our bed and the little cutlery there was could have walked out the kitchen. What's more, four nights before we left I'd noticed one of the toilet seats had a muddy footprint on it and when we left it was STILL there *shudder*. Oh and food was stolen from our bags three days in a row. So even though we liked Sydney it's probably fair to say that we weren't devastated to say goodbye to the hostel.

We're now about five hours up the coast from Sydney, in Port Macquarie, and the hostel we're staying in here is so much nicer. It has a pool, a free pool table, free internet, sofas on the veranda (so you can drink whilst watching the world go by - how American is that!), a big TV room with beanbags, good showers and - most importantly - clean beds. It feels like luxury. Port Macquarie is quite a small town but there's a fair amount to do. Our first day here was hot hot hot so we went to three of the town's several beaches to watch the surfers and soak up the sun before watching a film back at the hostel.

Yesterday we went on a whale-watching boat trip in the morning (for just $25! similar trips were $145 in New Zealand!) and followed a few migrating humpback whales for an hour or so. I thought that we would just see the occasional fin but it must have been our lucky day: the whales we saw leapt out of the water, smashing back down with an almighty splash several times. Very cool. In the afternoon we wandered through Kooloobung Nature Reserve in the vague hope that we'd see some Ozzie animals but not actually expecting to. Like I said before, it must have been our lucky day as we saw a cuddly koala bear curled up in a eucalyptus tree. We also saw dozens of roosting fruit bats but they weren't half as cute.

Today's weather has been awful: rainy and windy. We've spent the day planning out the next few places we'll be going to and debating whether to splash out on flying to Ayer's Rock before leaving Australia. I think we've talked ourselves into it.