I had the morning in Coffs Harbour so I had planned to go walking around the National Park but the weather had other ideas. It was a dully, cloudy morning with heavy rain, again, for most of it. So instead I spent the morning watching the cricket, possibly more depressing than the weather.

My bus out of Coffs was late, as is becoming the norm. This meant that by the time I got to Port Macquarie and checked in there wasn't really time to do much more than have a quick look around town. My accommodation was a bit of a surprise. From the description on the net it sounded like a hostel in the middle of a park area by the beach. But it turned out to be a camp site with a few cabins set aside for backpackers. It reminded me of the Eurocamp places in France where Mum and Dad used to take me and my brothers to when we were younger. And because it is the summer over here all the kids were on their summer holidays from school. Great!!

The morning of my first full day in Port was, again, wet so I spent it in an internet cafe waiting for the rain to pass, which it did just before midday. I used this break in the rain to go to the local Koala Hospital which was about a 30 minute walk form town. The hospital cares for koalas that have been injured and eventually returns them to the wild. However in serious cases the koalas stay at the hospital for the rest of their lives.

The hospital isn't very big so I actually went round a couple of times. It's situtated in the grounds of an old house so I spent an hour or so relaxing and eating lunch under a tree until I returned to the hospital at about 3pm to see the feeding and go on a guided tour.

As well as being basically huge balls of fluff, koalas are fascinating animals. For example the only thing they eat are eucalyotus leaves but these actually contain a poison that the koala is able to fight. This resistance does take a huge amount of their energy meaning that do little else other than eat and sleep, which they can do for up to 20 hours a day.

The rest of my day was spent back at my cabin relaxing and reading while listening to my music in an attempt to drown out the sound made by all the kids at the camp site.

My next day in Port, like the day before, consisted of a lot of walking. Much of Port Macquaire's coatline is actually rainforest and a part of this has been adapted to allow people to walk around on a boardwalk. This was Sea Acres Rainforest Park which lay on the edge of Port. In the interests of both economics and fitness I decided to walk to the park. It is about an hour and twenty mintues walk each way and in the heat of the day it was hard work.

The park itself was great. The broadwalk was 1.5km long and looped round a relatively small section of the forest. I followed a self-guided tour as I made my way through the forest. This definately wet my appitite and I can't wait until I get to the Blue Mountains, after Sydney, where I can explore a massive rainforest.

I eventually got back to my accommodation and found I had two new roommates. Racheal and Caroline were both form England and were travelling up the coast together. Basiclaly they had been where I was going and vice versa so we spent the evening exchanging stories and recommendations. I couldn't talk for long though as I leave for Newcastle at 5:35 am the next morning so needed to get an early night.