It has to be said… as much as we love our John, he can be our worst enemy at night. Tossing and turning in the stuffy van, we couldn't wait for the sun to rise this morning so we could finally yank back the door and breathe fresh air again.

Then, once we'd gone through the usual morning motions of sliding the bed into a back seat; stuffing our sleeping bags under the seat; and shifting our backpacks from the front to the back, we tucked into a traditional Aussie breakfast… Vegemite on toast. Yum.

After a quick assessment of the roadmap, we decided we should aim to get to Coffs Harbour tonight, so we quickly rose for a stroll along the nearby beach before checking out of the campsite at 10am. With the sun shining and a beautiful breeze, it really was so lovely. As the Australians like to say... 'nice day for it..'

Back in the van, we drove off to explore Port - our first stop being the lighthouse. This was a real working lighthouse and it also had a great view of the surrounding coastline. To our surprise we even spotted dolphins in the ocean below, which was brilliant - and we didn't have to be dragged around in a fishing net to enjoy them!

The water looked so good that it wasn't long until we were changing into our swimmers in the back of the van to take a dip. Port is blessed with a few great beaches, so we opted for lucky dip and parked John up alongside Shelly Beach. After slapping on the suntan lotion, we headed down to the beach and dived straight in. Of course we couldn't actually swim, instead we were just tossed around in the mental waves, but it was so much fun.. and a great way to cool down!

Back in the van, we drove to the main part of the town and despite insisting we'd shop at the supermarket for lunch, we accidentally ended up in the local fish and chip shop… again! It's just so hard to resist as the fish and chip shops here look more like fishmongers with every possible fish available, fresh from the sea.

It was a long drive to Coffs Harbour back on the Pacific Highway, but we couldn't leave Port Macquarie without a tour of the main reason we were here… the Koala Hospital. So our sightings in the wild were still at zero, but this place sure made up for it.

We were shown around by one of the volunteers at the hospital that is home for sick koalas - most of which have been involved in car accidents. Apparently more than 200 a year end up in this shelter, and a couple are now permenant residents. It was simply adorable to watch them being fed by volunteers, and there were even a couple of baby koalas... awww!

It took all of our strength to walk away without smuggling one away with us. They are just so cute, you just want to pick them up and cuddle them. The great thing about this place though, is that the volunteers do everything they can to prepare the koalas for their return into the wild. It meant cuddling was strictly prohibited, but if it means these gorgeous little things can be back with their friends again soon we reckon it's worth resisting…

As soon as the tour was over we put John through his paces to get to Coffs Harbour before sundown. Sadly he didn't quite make it, so we found ourselves arriving in the dark which makes things a little more tricky when we had nowhere to stay for the night. But we managed to find a car park beside the harbour where a bunch of other campervans seemed to be making themselves comfortable for the night, so we joined in - after rehearsing our "oh, we're very sorry, are we not allowed to park here?" speech, in case we should receive a tap on the window in the night!

There's a fishing club nearby so we've just nipped in to use their wifi and toilet facilities before we bed down for the night next to the shore. The Malaysian Grand Prix is on the TV so it's a night for reminiscing of our time there…. How far we've come since Asia...