Travel Diary: The East Coast, Australia

13 February We finally arrived in Townsville on the East Coast today. As we were approaching Townville you could see the impact of the cyclone with fields of trees all blown down and strewn across the roads. Townsville itself however looks fine aside from the trees on the sides of the roads. We had planned to do some volunteer work to help out but after just under a week it looks like they have it all sorted! We drove around the city looking for the information centre which turned out to be closed as its run by volunteers who decided to have a day off – very helpful! We drove around some more and eventually found a caravan park for the evening. 14 February Today we went to The Strand in Townsville which is an amazing beachfront with cafes, surf life saving clubs and ‘rock pools’ all along it. The rock pool at the end is basically like the bathing pools in Guernsey but a million times nicer. They have the rock pools as a safe place to swim away from the stingers as they filter all the water in and out. Shaun made friends with an Ozzy called Robo and played catch day and then he ended taking a look at the van for us as we think we have a fuel leak. For our romantic valentines evening we cooked a barbeque at the rock pool and watched the sunset which was perfect! Later on Shaun the romantic treated me to sticky toffee pudding and icecream in Woolworths car park! 15 February In the morning we went straight to a mechanics to look at the potential fuel leak and the reason it takes so long to start when hot. As luck would have it the van started straight away when we were showing the mechanic so that’s one problem out of the way for now. He then took a look at the fuel tank we have been having really bad fuel consumption over the past few days. He said that it was so slight that it was nothing to worry about. He did however find that the chock was stuck half on all the time so that solves the fuel consumption problem! As we got chatting to the mechanic he said that he was off to England for a holiday and was going to Doncaster so tried to get Shauns number as he mentioned he was from there! All this cost 40 bucks then we were on or way to our next destination down the coast, Airlie Beach. To our surprise there is no beach at Airlie Beach!! We found a place to park up at Nomads for 10 bucks each. As it’s been way too long and we have been cooped up in the desert for the past week we thought we deserved a night out! We went to the two bars in Airlie where they play live music and had a couple of diesels then ended up on the dance floor in Mama Africas. After one round of drinks costing 25 bucks we called it a night. 16 February We have booked a tour for tomorrow to do a 2 day 2 night cruise of the Whitsundays on a boat called Powerplay – which looks awesome!! Been looking forward to doing this since we got here. For the rest of the day we chilled out at Nomads and Shaun went down to the Lagoon which is a chlorinated pool on the esplanade where everybody hangs out. In the evening we took a stroll along the esplanade and got an ice cream – this place is really quite awesome!! When we got back to Nomads in later on Shaun went to the loo (portaloos – nice) opened the door and had a frog fall on his head!!! He whacked it off his head and it landed on the toilet seat!! And no he didn’t lick the frog!! 17 February We stocked up on goon and stubies and walked to the harbour to board PowerPlay at mid day. The boat was smaller than we had envisaged but looked awesome all the same. We had chosen a motor boat over sails as you can cover more distance this way. 17 out of the 18 places we filled. After an intro to the boat and the 3 members of crew we were shown our room. We had booked a private double and we were really glad we did after seeing the shared accommodation. Our room was double bed cubby hole we had to climb into. The shared accommodation however was cubby holes in all directions where you have to climb over everyone whilst they’re sleeping!! A few hours cruising through the awesome Whitsundays and we reached our first stop and our first diving opportunity. You can’t come to the Great Barrier Reef and not dive so we had planned to do at least one and since they are having a ‘cyclone special’ with dives from $70 down to $30 it was a bargain! We got all geared up and since the gear was so heavy I actually fell into the tender boat (like Shaun’s old one) to transport us to the drop off point. A scarily enough we had to all do a roll backwards off the boat as our first trick!! This actually went well! The four of us, plus Matt the instructor, all stood at standing height on the shore and went through a series of basics – going down, taking out the oxy and blowing bubbles and blowing water out of your mask all under water. We all managed this aside from Laura who got a bit freaked out by the breathing and went for a snorkel instead. Then we got onto the good stuff and were off following Matt towards the reef. It was really incredible and we got the hang of it in no time. After 30 minutes we had to go back up but this only left us wanting to do it again!! For the rest of the day we cruised along to Tongue Bay to anchor down for the night!! The sunset out here is amazing and later on we went and chilled out on the nets and watched the millions of stars. 18 February Our morning began with a slow and choppy drive to Heyman Island (always pronounced in a Jamaican accent!) where we did our second dive. Even better than the first, feeling more confident and able to relax more and enjoy it. We saw all sorts of Nemos but unfortunately none of the promised sharks, turtles or sting rays. After a short stop for some awesome lunch we headed to another island for our third dive. This dive had promised to be one of the best including lots of turtles, reef sharks and a giant Moray Rasse called Pricilla which is very interested in divers. Unfortunately, we saw neither due to the sea conditions being rough and churning up the bottom of the reef. Coming up to the end of our dive the sea conditions had got worse and a huge swell forced us to come up early from the 9 meter depth. We finally approached the surface where Jodie looked like she had just ran a marathon. The swell was very strong and she had to swim flat out with her little legs to keep up. That evening a German couple on the boat had seen a few dolphins swimming with the boat at the bow. We only found out about this when they had gone and the couple came and told everybody, why they didn’t tell us when they where there I don’t know - “bloody Germans!” After an awesome sunset and few beers we retired to our closet, I mean room. 19 February We started to day off with a dive at 7am – there is no better way to start it in the Whitsundays!! This dive was really cool as we were drifting along with the current so it was really peaceful and chilled out, a fast contrast to the conditions of the last dive! Unfortunately, yet again we saw nothing exciting!! One of the divers reckoned that we saw a turtle though – I think they just make it up!! After our dive we went for a snorkel and just drifted along holding hands, very romantic!! And we even spotted a huge moray rasse, finally we have something to write home about!! Back on deck we had some breakfast and started to journey back to shore for mid day. When we were back in Airlie Beach we headed down to the Lagoon and met up with Laura and Gill, the Scots from the boat. After a quick skype session home we went down to Beaches to meet up with the girls for free drinks which the boat (and all the other boats) organise. As everyone else on the boat had said they were leaving Airlie the same day we were just expecting it to be the 4 of us but half of them changed their mind and came down which was really nice. After Beaches we went to the towns Irish pub (every town in the World has one!) for a drink then back to Nomads with Laura and Gill to make some tea. The girls met Letoya and Hugo and even had a few piccys!! 20 February Forget anything we did in the morning i’m going to skip straight to the good part! Basically we decided to stop at a petrol station to get some air in the tires. When we first drove in we didn’t spot the air pump so I jumped out to ask. Turns out it was just behind us at the first petrol pump so Shaun reversed ... STRAIGHT INTO THE STRUCTURAL STEEL BEAM! After screaming stop and lots of f words from Shaun we went around the back to see the damage. He had hit dead centre the middle of the van straight into the beam completely obliterating the drain pipe attached to it. It left a couple of dents in the back, a scrape of paint on the back windscreen but luckily it didn’t smash. After a fit of hysterics we realised there was actually some real damage to the van - we couldn’t get the rear door to open, the bumper area and the framework behind is all crumpled which holds the fuel tank. After some prodding and poking with some screw drivers we couldn’t get it to open so we decided to head on to the next stop anyway. Just around the corner from the petrol station was a dead end, turns out we didn’t need to come this way anyway! Shaun’s excuse for this little mishap was that the beams were painted the same colour green as the trees behind them! We drove to the next big city which is Mackay and we spent the rest of the afternoon until closing in SuperCheap Auto car park buying tools and trying to pry open the boot. After about 2 hours Shaun and his magic hammer got it open!! As we were now satisfied that we could eat all the trapped food in the back we headed off to find a campsite for the night. The first one we found was Mackay Marine Caravan Park and as all we wanted was a beer and a sit down we paid the 25 bucks without even looking at the place. We finally found a dry spot to park the van and tried to put the beers in the fridge only to find out it doesn’t work neither did the rest of the camp kitchen. This annoyed us since we paid for this campsite and need cold beer at the end of this mad day we wanted power! We got a refund and headed for another campsite. Luckily we found one 10 mins down the road for the same price and it was 100% better with an amazing camp kitchen and huge fridge freezer! 21 February After waking up again in soaking sweat the fun of sleeping in a camper in this climate is starting to wear out! At mid day after collecting yet some more tools to try and fix the bumper back on we set on our way to The Town of Seventeen Seventy. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it as far as Seventeen Seventy today and ended up in a free rest stop near Gladstone and were right in the centre of a huge thunder and lightening storm. We were really looking forward to a vegy curry of tea but because it is chucking it down we have resorted to eating cereal sat in the dark in the van!   22 February After Shaun showered in the skanky showers (I decided against this one as there was a nice big diarrhoea on the floor in the ladies) we set off early and made it into the tiny town of Agnes Waters. First stop was the information centre of course, and she told us of a campsite called Workmans Beach Campsite for $5.50 each, bargain. We went for a short drive in the pouring rain first to check out The Town of Seventeen Seventy (named after the year Captain Cook first stepped ashore) and then we headed to the campsite which is set in a forest right next to the beach which is really cool. As it was raining we set up the awning over the van and pinned it down and chilled out the rest of the day. As darkness came, very quickly, we cooked up another amazing chick pea curry, had a few beers and watched the stars through the trees. 23 February We had hoped this morning to do our free Scooteroo Tour given to us from Travel Bugs for booking our Whitsunday Crusie with them!!! Scooteroos are big looking Harleys with small scooter engines in! We were told however, that it wouldn’t be on a Scooteroo but in a minivan talking about the Scooteroos trying to guilt you into booking a real tour! So instead we headed across the road to Reef 2 Beach Surf Shop and entered ourselves into a 3 hour surf lesson for only 17 bucks (cheapest surf lesson in Oz!). The surf instructors were in the form of 2 pervy old men with big beer bellies!! They first sat down the 21 wannabe surfers and basically showed us the form and a basic speech about how easy it was. They then took us all out on the water and off we went! The old men would call over the girls to push them off ignoring all the boys in the class. Shaun picked it up like that and was well on his way to being a pro by the end of the 3 hours. I, however, was having a bit of a wardrobe malfunction (ladies ... never surf in a strapless bikini) and got into a tantrum (not after managing to stand up for a few seconds a couple of times)! Feeling pretty worn out we walked back to the campsite and showered in the outside cold shower, packed up and got on the road to Bundaberg. Looking in the Camps 5 we headed down to a free overnight spot by the Port. When we got there however the whole place looked abandoned and a little eerie to be staying there by ourselves so we continued around the river. We eventually gave in and went to a campsite and paid $25 for the two of us. As we were cooking up our soup one of the locals came in and saw Shaun trying to feed a bright green frog some chicken, unsuccessfully of course, and told him that the toads which are in abundance are actually poisonous! The ones in which Shaun had been catching the previous night (and had fall on his head once) where one trace of its poison on its skin into a cut or mouth and you die in 5 minutes! He tells us now ay! 24 February Back on the exercise regime today as it isn’t as hot in the mornings now we are further south, we started the day with a game of Exercise Card Game. After this Shaun attempted to fix the damage to the bumper with some silicone and a lick of black paint – job done!! After he was finished you’d never know!!! At 1 pm we went to Bondstore, the brewery where they make Bundaberg Rum, for a guided tour around the factory for $25 each. Our tour guide was lacking in some vital enthusiasm so the tour wasn’t so great but the two free drinks in the bar made up for that! Bundaberg Black Liquor is what you want to be drinking – it tastes a bit like Baileys yum yum!! We also made friends with one of the guys on the tour called Sam, who is out here fruit picking (like the other hundreds of baxkpackers) who actually makes more money doing that than being a nurse back in England! We ended up giving him a lift back to his hostel as he showed us where the supermarket was. By 4pm, again, we set off for Hervey Bay which is about 150km away. On the way on the side of the road was an articulated truck ploughed side on into the trees so it looked like it had jack knifed at speed. As there were no free campsites in Camp 5 we headed straight for Torquay Tourist Park and were greeted by what must be the most miserable woman that ever lived!! After a greeting like that we regretfully paid $25 and parked up. There are no other campervans here though so tomorrow we need to find out where they’re hiding! We cooked up yet some more yummy chicken noodle soup along with a beer and got into bed. Then we realised it was only 8.30 so we finished reading Shaun’s book (we are out of films on the laptop)! The sun goes down at about 6.30 pm along the coast so it’s really confusing us when it’s late! 25 February After somewhat of a lie in, we were actually able to sleep in until 9am without getting baked, we headed straight off for the tourist information centre to get some info about doing jeep tour of Fraser Island. It looks really cool but the prices were extortionate and we decided we could have just a good experience on one of the other sand islands and not have to pay a fortune and sit on a crammed four wheel drive bus. For the rest of the day we sunbathed (well I did and Shaun took an hours’ walk across the sand) and chilled out before we got on the road to head to Noosa. We decided to stay in a rest stop on the freeway overnight as there are no free campsites in Noosa. As we were out of films I went over to a couple in a hired camper and asked them for some swaps. We ended up chatting to the couple, Roger and his girlfriend with an unpronounceable name from the Netherlands, for over an hour. It was really weird as they were basically us!! They had been travelling around South East Asia for four months and been to the same places as us and they had been in Australia for a few weeks and are leaving from Sydney to Christchurch on the same day like us!! Anyway since we were getting eaten alive by mozzies (some even drawing blood on Shaun’s legs) we decided to call it a night and watch our new film. 26 February This morning we decided to head to Eumundi for the Saturday market which Roger and his girlfriend were taking about last night. When we got there, it was more than we expected, the market was huge!!! They were selling just about everything you can imagine! As I was looking in the Ugg Shop we noticed that the woman was sat there with a kangaroo joey in her bag feeding it milk out of a tiny bottle!! After a few hours wondering around being very restrained and not buying anything we got back on the road to head to Noosa. Noosa was just as everyone had described it as we arrived – a very surfy town with Laborginnis and other incredibly posh cars driving around! We tried to find somewhere to park on Main Beach (where we saw Roger and his girlfriend again) but had no luck it was jam packed! Instead we tried to sort out our accommodation. Shaun had to drop me off at the tourist information centre in the end as it is impossible to park (as it is the weekend and the weather is amazing it doesn’t help). The cheapest place to stay on the map was actually a scouts club!! The guy said we could stay there for $10 each a night in our tent (as it’s more expensive for a van). Only us and one other tent were pitched in the entire camp ground!! There were loads of campers around the beach so we have no idea where they go! After we pitched our tent we headed to Sunshine Beach where there is apparently good surf. Good surf indeed – the waves were huge – not the kind for beginners!! Our only other choices were a nudist beach or to try and go back to main beach! We eventually found a park at main beach and tried to get around through the national park to the good surf spot but it was dead, the tide was now going down! Instead we stayed around Main Beach and had a swim. At last, we treated ourselves to fish and chips and Shaun had a deep fried mars bar (tastes as good as it sounds!). The fish and chip shops around Australia are in abundance so it was inevitable that we would give them a go. They are nothing like our greasy chip shops at home and they even give you a choice of grilled, battered or bread crumbed fish! Yummy!! We got some internet today and after checking facebook it turns out that we actually stayed in 1770 the same night as Tom and never saw him, which is very bizarre as there only 2 beaches and about 100 meters of shops!! Never mind, we will probably bump into him in New Zealand! 27 February Up early today and packed up our tent that we never slept in and headed to the beach in an attempt to actually park the van today. We ended up going to The Spit but had no luck with the parking so we headed back to Sunshine Beach to give the waves a crack. When we arrived, the waves had died down somewhat from yesterday so Shaun was straight in on the board. Not long after we had to retreat to the shade as it was far too hot to sit in the sun. We showered in the beach showers and then got on the road, once again, to head to Maroochy which is a conglomerate of Maroochydore, Alexandra Headland and Malloolaba all apparently on the surfers map. As we couldn’t find Marochydore Beach we went around the coast to Alexandra Headland Beach where there was actually decent surf (for a beginner anyways). In the Camps 5 we found a rest stop called Jawarra only 20km from Maroochy which actually turned out to be quite nice where lots of other caravans stay. And to our total shock the German guy we were camped up next to (the one we could hardly understand) in Alice Springs turned up to use the toilet!! This is pretty impressive considering that was thousands of kilometres away and weeks ago!! He was as shocked as us and said that Brisbane would be his last stop before heading home so we wouldn’t bump into him again! 28 February This morning we headed straight back to the Alexandra Headland Beach and chilled out there for the rest of the day. In the evening we headed back to Jawarra on Steve Irwin Way and parked up next to an Aussie guy and his dog DB (Dumb Blonde he said, don’t take any offence) in a huge campervan. As usual the Aussies are so friendly and we ended up chatting for ages before getting chased into our vans by the mozzies! 1 March An early one this morning as we need to get down to Malloolaba to do our free 2 hour stand up paddle session which we got as a gift from Travel Bugs when we booked our Whitsundays Cruise. It was only me and Shaun on the lesson which was quite nice and a traveller from the USA took us out on the quay. The stand up paddle is surprisingly easy, all you do is stand up facing forward in the middle of a giant surf board and paddle like in a kayak! As soon as your sea legs kick in the balancing becomes pretty easy! We went down the calm waters past, what they call, the ‘million dollar islands’ and you can see why! All the houses are beautiful and architecturally brilliant all with their own personal pontoon for their boats!! An hour later and we were back at the beginning feeling like we could have died of thirst being out in the heat for so long and with quite achy arms! Needing a cool down we drove down to Alexandra Headland beach for a swim. Feeling a bit pumped up from this morning we did an exercise session on the beach playing 10 to 1. Which is doing four exercises (press ups, sit ups, squats and runs) 10 times then repeating 9 times then 8 times etc. In the evening we set up camp at Jawarra rest stop again and cooked up a very English dish of sausages, peas and mash which was amazing!!! We are becoming surprisingly good cooks now! 2 March We got up early this morning, feeling pretty tired since we kept waking up all night because it’s soooooo hot!! We had already planned to do some exercise this morning so we had to stick to it however tired we were! Back to Alexexandra Headland beach for another round of 10 to 1. By time we had exercised, showered and had breakfast it was now lunch time and probably too late to go to the Australia Zoo in which we’ve been told you need a full day. Never mind, we will go tomorrow. For the rest of the day we went online at the library and caught up on all the gossip in the magazines!! At least $7 each in the shops, we can’t really afford to be buying magazines so reading them in the library beats me having a quick peak in the news agents!! In the evening, we sat at Alexandra Headland and watched all the hundreds of runners exercise while we sat, cooked and ate our massaman curry!! 3 March We got up early this morning, in sweats, and headed straight back down to Malloolaba for a shower. Then it was time for the Australia Zoo!!!!!!!!!! You simply cannot come to Australia and not visit Steve Irwins’ Zoo (however pricy it is at $58 each!). The zoo was really good and they had all the Ozzy animals and a few other reptiles from around the World like the Giant Tortoise (a personal highlight for me) and a Komodo Dragon (they are bigger than we imagined). And of course, they put on a Steve Irwin like croc show and many other displays about koalas and otters and birds! We ended up spending all day at the zoo, just about managing to see it all before headed into Maloolaba again. We had put our van up on the Ozzy site called Gum Tree. Within 2 hours we had 2 responses. After following them up this Phil guy who said he would buy the van emailed us back and it turned out to be a big scam! Basically he started sending fraudulent emails from Paypal telling us that we had to pay $950 into Western Union money transfer for his courier, then we send the transfer code to paypal and they would release the $6,000 to us. All a load of bull! It all looked very convincing but luckily we caught on before being scammed!! After sitting in the library for hours trying to figure what out what was going on we were pretty exhausted so ended up having Shauns favourite for tea, KFC! So much for all this exercise we’ve been doing! 4 March After our first cool night in God knows how long because we slept with the back door open plus the fact that it rained all night meant for a relaxed sleep without waking up in sweats!! At 11am we hit the road for the hours journey to Brisbane. We wanted to get the accommodation sorted first so headed to one that was in Lonely Planet only 4km from the City Centre. As it was raining all day, and we are now brolliless and we do not own coats we stayed in the campsite for the rest of the day. We had wanted to go into Brisbane for a night out but as it was raining it didn’t seem like the best idea! Whilst cooking up some dinner a French couple came over to the camp kitchen and my God she was talkative!! They were here in Brisbane trying to sell their van, without any luck in 4 weeks (I hope we don’t have this trouble), so had been working to sustain themselves. But to our amazement they had been living in the van for a whole year, we are just about handling 2 months!! 5 March This morning we got the bus (the campsite actually let us leave the van in their car park for free which was very nice of them) into Brisbane town centre for over $4 each which is just insane!!! We spent the day meandering around the shops and ended up stocking up on a good few books. Brisbane itself is really nice and as it was a weekend there was lots going on like a promo day for the Uni’s which seemed very enticing as well as a few pub crawls going on! We are thinking about coming back to Australia for a year and working (the wages are so much higher here than at home) and maybe Brisbane is where we will come?? After doing some food shopping we got on the road and headed for the much awaited Surfers Paradise!!! We had really been looking forward to this one!! As there are no free camp spots or even any tourist parks in Surfers Paradise we drove 10 km to Main Beach and stayed in Main Beach Tourist Park for the extortionate price of $42 a night!!!!! The town looked really nice and full of young travellers and even by 6pm it looked heaving so we were going to have a night out but because we were now far out of town and it was hammering it down we stayed at the caravan park and drank council pop instead, disappointing! 6 March This morning we left the campsite by 10am (at check out) and parked up in the free parking area 4 km from Surfers Paradise town. We walked into town, with the gail force wind pushing us along and spent the day doing my favourite activity, shopping!!! There are loads of surf shops and little cafes and a few night clubs which make this a really nice little town. After a lot of money spent we headed towards Burleigh Heads to try and find a cheaper night stop. As we suspected, the council run Burleigh tourist park was also mega expensive so we drove just over the bridge and booked in at Tallebudgera Tourist Park for $35 which is still expensive but more reasonable! We were the only ones to be parked up in the unpowered section so we had no one to make friends with! Instead, we had a few beers and chilled out in the evening. 7 March We checked in to stay another night at Tallebudgera Tourist Park so we could go and check out Burleigh. It doesn’t look like there is much of a town but Burleigh Heads Beach is really nice. In the evening we had a few more beers before having to retreat from the rain. 8 March This morning we headed straight to Burleigh Beach and whilst I layed on the beach and read my book Shaun spent all morning on the big waves fighting with his little surf board! In the afternoon we got on the road and headed to Byron Bay. Huge smiles developed on our faces as soon as we pulled up into Main Beach as the car park was packed with campers, more than anywhere we had been!! Everyone was just chilling out in the park next to the beach and it seemed very chilled! For dinner we cooked up some kangaroo steaks and chips in the park, yum yum. After asking the other campers where to park up for free over night they said we could stay in the main beach car park but the rangers come around at 6 in the morning and the police may come during the night or there were various national parks just out of town where rangers do not scout everyday, we headed to one of these. We decided to stay at Cape Byron National Park which was right next to the Broken Heads Beach and when we arrived there were already 3 other campers parked up so we were happy!! However, it didn’t seem quite right as the car park is right next to the entrance to a caravan park! 9 March 5.30 am alarm this morning so that we would be up in case the ranger came to kick us out of the car park. It was really nice to actually get up early though and aside from a few surfers out on the rocks we had the beach and the sunrise to ourselves, amazing!! We lounged around for the rest of the morning and Shaun had a go at DIYing the van again (as the side door doesn’t really fit very straight). We then headed to the post office to try and post some gifts back home, when she said it would cost $65 (about £45) our jaws dropped and we retrieved some of them back!! We had a quick mooch on the net and realised through the power of facebook that it was Shrove Tuesday yesterday so, not wanting to miss out, we headed to Woolworths and brought some Harry Potter pancake mix and cooked them up next to the beach! As the weather was like a sunny English day, which is too cold for us right now, we sat on the beach fully clothed and read our books for hours! And again, like the true pikeys we have become we showered at the outside beach showers. But here it doesn’t seem so weird since everyone lives in their vans and showers here! Like everyone else here too, we got a pizza and sat and ate it in the park watching the Japanese guy do his poor attempt of fire spinning (you cannot compare to those in Thailand). Again, we parked up at Cape Byron but this time when we arrived there were no other campers but we decided to stay anyway. 10 March Another 5.30 alarm, and since the ranger hadn’t come the previous day we reasoned he probably would today so we set off and parked in the main beach car park and had breakfast whilst watching the sun rise. The ranger did come here but didn’t catch us sleeping!! After breakfast, we moved around to the free parking and had a few hours kip there before getting back on the beach where Shaun had another go at surfing, again without much luck on his tiny board!! As we have just been laying on the beach the past few days i’ve gotten through two books, this is going to cost a fortune, books aren’t cheap here!! We found a campsite in town which is rare called First Sun Holiday park for $38 so that we could have a night out on the town! Session is on tonight!! We got ready and I put on my lovely new dress and Shaun wore his first pair of jeans since leaving home, we went to Cheeky Monkeys as we had a free entree voucher. To our surprise the food here is so cheap so not only did we have a free entree, we got a main meal and a free drink all for 5 bucks each which is about £3.50!! The food isn’t bad either!! But by the time it came we had already had two drinks so hardly touched our food! It obviously gets majorly packed in there and 2 German girls joined us on our table and it was one of their birthdays. We were pleased with this so we had some people to have a session with. But after their 2 Swiss friends joined them, they still weren’t up for drinking or even doing shots!! I thought Germans knew how to drink but obviously not!! After a few hours the girls left to go home! We stayed for another drink and left as soon as the Wet T-shirt competition started. From what we did see the girls we even stripping off it was insane all for $300! We headed off to a few other bars and then tried to find a club, we tried all of them and they were all as bad as Guernsey clubs!! Disappointing so we had a free cocktail jar (literally in a jam jar) and left! No idea what time we got home but it was probably rather late! 11 March Hangover!!!! We got up this morning very hungover, even though we weren’t very drunk last night – I think we just can’t handle our drink anymore since we don’t drink as much! Because we needed to sleep we drove straight to another campsite a few kilometres down the road which we knew would be cheaper than staying another night at the one in town. The campsite is called Beaches of Byron and cost of 15 bucks each which isn’t too bad. For the rest of the morning we slept and read books and tried to ease off the hangover! As we had done nothing all day we thought it was about time to do something so in the late afternoon we headed into town so Shaun could get a haircut. Unfortunately for me, there were no dramas! Every haircut poor Shaun has had on this trip has been a complete disaster and I always end up in hysterics! The barber actually did a really good job and gave him something a little different. For dinner, we decided to go back to Cheeky Monkeys because we cannot refuse 2 meals and a drink each for 5 bucks it’s crazy! As we got there the line was huge so we tried looking for somewhere else to eat without luck though as one meal would cost a minimum of $15 so we went back to Cheeky Monkeys! In the bar they have an alcohol breath tester so we decided to have a go after I had a glass of champagne and Shaun had one middy of beer. Shaun’s level was 0.00 somehow and to my shock mine was 0.35. The legal limit to drive here in 0.20 and I would have driven after one tiny glass of champagne, lucky I didn’t!! Also here any L or P plates (you have to have a P plate for a year after taking your initial test then you take another test) limit is 0.00 to drive! On the way home we stopped at Woolworths and treated ourselves to desert of sticky toffee pudding and ice cream, yum yum!! After this, we had planned to get in bed and watch This Is It (the Michael Jackson film) but we fell straight asleep we were so tired. 12 March As this campsite doesn’t really have a check out time, for the first time we can remember, we didn’t set an alarm!!!! We ended up sleeping in until 10am when the heat started seeping into the van. Then time suddenly escaped us and it was 2pm!! We headed to the lighthouse at Cape Byron and as soon as we arrived we spotted dolphins!! We went further around the coast and spotted the big pod of dolphins again as well as our first shark – just around the corner from the beach we have been swimming at!!!!! A guy there informed us that it was only a black tip reef shark (how he knew this from where we were standing I don’t know) and they are harmless to humans, still a little scary!! We also went into the Lighthouse Museum where they even had a picture of an Ocra (killer whale) splashing around with surfers just off the coast which is pretty insane!! After using some net we got on the road for our long drive down to Coffs Harbour. It was however, longer away then we thought so we parked up in a rest stop for the night and cooked up some dinner under the shelter from the rain. We finally watched This Is It as well!! 13 March Early morning we got back on the highway and made it to Coffs Harbour. As we arrived there was a Sunday Market going on at the jetty so we checked this out first. We ended up buying some amazing fresh honey and ‘organic’ bananas (I don’t really care that they are organic they were just a good price since we can’t afford to buy them at the supermarket since Typhoon Yasi). We found some campers parked up in a car park so we asked them where to stay and they said most people stay in the tourist park because it has free wifi. This sounded good as we need to skype this weekend so we paid $27 for the night. Park Beach Caravan Park is probably the nicest one we have stayed in yet with a huge indoor camp kitchen, nice pool and a big bouncing pillow!! We chilled out by the pool for the day and skyped all evening. 14 March Today we had a lie in and then decided to stay another night as this will be our last place to chill out before we will be back in Sydney trying to sell the van! In the afternoon we headed to the river, where it meets the beach, to fish (which came with the van and actually works). Unfortunately, there were no fish to be caught but it was nice to actually have a swim without being drowned by huge waves as the river was calm! Tonight, we are chilling out having a some more beers (Shaun bought a crate and we are now running out of time to drink them, not that we’re complaining!). A la perchoine, Shaun and Jodie