Sunday 11th January

The rest of our time in Sydney was quite uneventful. We stayed an extra few days and moved to another hostel (Lamrock Lodge) to sort out our next travel plans. We spent a couple of days on the beach. We eventually sorted out our route and transport, anddecided best thing to do would be getting the Premier Motor Service buses up the east coast, getting planes between Cairns, Alice Springs and Adelaide, and then getting either a bus or campervan back up to Sydney.

On the 5th, we got the bus overnight up to Bellingen. We arrived at Urunga at about 6am so we had to wait at the tourist infomation centre until we could get hold of the YHA place we were staying at. It didn't open till 8am, but luckily a man pulled up and gave us a lift at about half 7. He was called Graham and turned out to be the owner of the hostel. When we got there we found that there had been a mix up with the booking and we had to stay 2 nights in separate dorms and 2 nights in a double room, but we got the dorm nights free so it was ok. The area was very beautiful, lots of countryside. Every evening at about half 7, thousands of Flying Fox's started flying around from a nearby island and over our hostel and it went on for ages. There was also a resident cat and 2 chickens, and a cool hammock in the garden. One day we walked down to the river. Chris had a go at jumping in on some rope swings, (tarzan style). We both had rubber rings from the hostel so we could float down the river which was fun. The next day we hired some bikes. We rode about 25km up to a place called Never Never Creek which is near the Promised Land. It was a hard ride - lots of hills. There was lots of pretty scenery along the way, and we stopped at a couple of rivers for a picnic and a paddle. We were aching alot the next day, so just relaxed around the town and got some nice ice cream.

Yesterday we travelled up to Coffs Harbour. We had to get a public bus as the Premier bus wasn't running at a reasonable time to get there. Coffs Harbour is a sea side town, with a lots of beaches, a harbour and a river. Theres a Botanical Gardens where Koalas live so hopefully we'll see them.