Day 79 -Coffs Harbour -Tuesday 3rd January 2012

Off the bus and after walking the wrong way for 30 minutes, we gave in and called our motel only to discover it was back the way we'd come. We finally arrived at the Premier Motor Inn - it was like a little motel that you see in US movies, complete with a drive through reception! The lady behind reception was so friendly and as Australian as they come - we even got a g'day greeting. She let us check in early so we headed straight to bed for a couple of hours kip before exploring what Coffs had to offer.

After a couple of hours sleep and a hot shower we headed out. First impressions - Coffs harbour is the hottest place in the universe!! Well, it's probably not but it definitely feels it and apparently it is the hottest day they've had all summer. It's not even the heat in Australia that gets you, it's the sun - we have never come across sun like it! You can actually feel it burning you, factor 30 reapplied through the day is the only answer!

We walked the long walk down to the promenade and Jetty; the town is split into 3 sections which all seem to be miles from each other and in the 30 degree heat the walk seemed like miles! We eventually arrived at the Jetty beach and laid down for a while but it was so hot that after 20 minutes we gave in and decided to walked up to Muttonbird Island which gave great views of the beaches.

Hungry and still hot, we ventured back to the main promenade and tried unsuccessfully to get some food; it seems that all of the little cafes close at 5pm - just as we wanted to eat! We carried on walking hoping to find somewhere else to get but it seemed that we were fated to starve! We happily stumbled across a Coles supermarket so bought some food and headed back to our motel to eat cheese on crackers and salad whilst watching the film Moneyball - not too bad…..

Day 80 -Coffs Harbour to Byron Bay -Wednesday 4th January 2012

The plan for today was to meet at with Danny and Nikki and go and see Coffs Harbour's most iconic landmark - a huge concrete, yellow banana! Yes, I'm serious! Anyway, after studying the map and discovering that the Big Banana was about an hour walk away down a highway with no pavement, we decided that we'd live without seeing it and instead headed towards the Botanic Gardens. After a walk round, we headed to the garden café for sandwiches and afternoon tea.

Come evening, our greyhound bus picked us up bound for Byron Bay. 5 minutes in we drove past the Big banana - yay, that's a tick off the list!

The bus journey was probably the worst so far - it seemed that our driver was unable to brake gradually and instead we all nearly got chucked out of our seats every time the bus needed to stop. This didn't do too much for my travel sickness and however much I tried to concentrate on the film "One Day", come the halfway point I quickly had to run to the toilet and lie down to stop myself being sick. The film wasn't great either, another film that just doesn't live up to the book……..

We arrived, slightly green and feeling queasy at Byron Bay and checked into our hostel Aquarius. After a walk round and a bit of dinner, we headed to bed ready to see Byron by day.