Nic writes…

Our last two weeks in Australia were lovely. We had a hired car, so no worrying about public transport (and petrol is cheap), accommodation was all booked in advance and the weather was almost perfect.

We visited the Blue Mountains first, named as the gum trees supposedly give off a blue haze. Our journey out there took us via the Sydney Olympic Park. The Sydney Olympics in 2000 were the first Olympics that captured my attention (and I have been hooked ever since), so it was quite special to visit the park and imagine what it would have been like at the time.

The Blue Mountains were very picturesque and we did a lovely walk which took us along a path that was halfway down a cliff. There were big flocks of wild cockatoos and the noise they made was quite amazing (read: loud).

After leaving the Blue Mountains we had a big day of driving to take us to Port Macquarie. On this drive, we started our first audiobook of the trip. We first tried audiobooks on a holiday to the USA in 2013 when we listened to Michael McIntyre's autobiography, read by him. It was so funny and we found ourselves extending our drives just so we could listen to a little bit more. This time we listened to Kevin Bridge's autobiography and it was equally addictive. We have a Nick Hornby book lined up next, but are looking for more autobiographies, so any suggestions would be welcome.

Port Macquarie was very pleasant and we visited a koala hospital and a small wildlife park. We also had a barbeque near the beach (many picnic areas in Australia have barbeques that are free to use, it's a great idea although maybe not really appropriate in the UK)! In Port Macquarie we also had our first experience of airbnb where we stayed with a couple of British expats and their adorable cats. It was great and they really made us feel at home.

We travelled to Byron Bay next. Famous for surfing and hippie culture, it was a great place to wander around and people watch. Whilst there we drove to nearby Nimbin which was the site of the 1973 Aquarius festival. Many attendees never left and so the town has become a bit of a hippy enclave. Nowadays it holds an annual "Mardigrass" festival (the festival flyer contained a section entitled "advice for dealing with police if arrested for drug offences"). Again, walking around and people watching was fascinating and we learnt a lot from the posters put up around the town. Did you know that wifi kills animals? No, we didn't either!

In Byron I celebrated my birthday. As a treat we decided to go diving as there was a reasonable chance we would see a manta ray (sound familiar?). I was quite nervous about the dive as great white sharks visit the waters around the dive site (although the last fatal attack on a diver happened in 1993 and there have been thousands of divers in the waters since). Thankfully the dive was great! No white sharks, many leopard/zebra sharks (not known for attacking divers, apparently the only 'attack' ever recorded occurred when one mildly harassed a diver who had a nose bleed), wobbygongs and…a manta ray!! Finally! It was so exciting to see one and we had to calm down pretty quickly or we would have used up all of our air. It wasn't too big (about 2 metres across), but the wait was worth it. The perfect birthday present.

After Byron Bay we travelled to Surfers Paradise, which was very built up and felt a lot like an American city. Here we spent 3 days around theme parks and water parks. Great fun given the temperatures, but I guess not very cultural.

Finally, we drove up to Brisbane, handed in the car and got a flight to New Zealand. We have been in New Zealand for five days now, but we'll save that for the next blog!