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This Blog covers our journey from Sydney to Byron Bay.
First stop was Forster, we went there because after our drunken conversation with the hippies in Canberra, Forster was underlined on our map in our guide book, can't remember much of what was said about it, so thought we'd stop over there.
We are sure it would have been a lovely place in the sunshine but as it happens it was chucking it down and although the place is apparently always chocker with dolphins we didn't see any. Its also the only place on the East Coast where you can swim with wild dolphins, something we were excited about only to find the place liscenced to swim with the dolphins shut.
So we spent most of our time walking around the coast in the rain and rain bathing on the beach as well as talking to all the weird locals.
We spent our night at a really dodgy hostel which we had completely to ourselves. It smelled of old people and was run by this lovely old scottish lady, who when Laura said "Is that a Scottish accent?" to make conversation, she told us her complete life story for about half an hour. Then she kindly let us borrow some umbrellas. We don't have any because even though it's winter here Laura stubbornly refuses to buy any because we're on holiday and it doesn't rain when you're on holiday!
Met a wierd but nice Italian man living in the Hostel at Forster, out of all the places in Australia to live he chose Forster, and so had an enjoyable evening with him and some beer. He was in charge of cleaning the kitchen and entertainment which he appologised to us about because "At night it's ok because we can drink for entertainment, but I'm sorry because during the day there is nothing" which explains why there are 3 bottle shops and 4 pubs in the little town of Forster.
Next stop was Port Maquarie which was lovely and here we actually got sunshine and saw whales as well as dolphins!
Got picked up at the bus station by a backpacker hostel van, which we were a bit apprehensive about because we've had a bad experience of being picked up and taken to a really terrible hostel in Bratislava, but this one was lovely and really friendly.
We made friends with all the Dutch and German people at our hostel who we have also met up with here in Byron Bay. We went with a Dutch guy called Josh to go whale watching but we couldn't out of the harbour because The Bar (which is where the river and the ocean meets and creates big waves) was too rough and the captain didn't wanna risk us getting capsised! So instead we went and spent the day at the Wildlife Park where we got to stroke koalas and feed the wallabies! There were also talking parrots which said "How ya going?" in an Australian accent which we found hysterical!
In the evening the Dutch people went to the observatory to have an educational star gazing session, but we went and checked out the local night life mainly because we noticed it was a cloudy night and we were also celebrating Tony Blair finally resigning! Had an enjoyable drink in the Irish bar then to another pub which just happened to have a brilliant blues band playing so found ourselves jaw dropped as the band of old jazz players spent the session showing off their amazing talent.
The next day we got up early again to go whale watching and this time it was much calmer so we got over the bar no problem. We saw lots of whales and dolphins which came right up to the boat and at one point you didn't know which way to look, at the dolphins or the whales. On the down side Kate was hungover and got quite sea sick, alcohol and ocean swell not a good combination.
Our last stop was Byron Bay, the land of bums and hippies. We followed the crowds who got off the bus and ended up at this giant hippy hostel thing that was completely full. We couldn't get into a dorm room so they put us into one of their permanent tent/teepee things. Out came our sleeping bags because its freezing but they also provided us with electric blankets so we wern't too cold. The up side its cheaper than staying in an actual building.
Went to the lovely Byron Bay and while we were frolicking around in the sand trying to remember our yoga and Kate was unsucessfully trying to teach Laura to cart-wheel, a rogue big wave came and swept up our belongings including Laura's camera (the only camera that was working). So now none of our cameras work, which is a b*****. Back at the hostel randomly met up with Nina, a German girl we met in Port Macquarie, and Laura had her fringe cut by a hairdresser at the hostel. Because we were both British she gave Laura a half price cut. Then went back to the beach to watch the beautiful sunset but we were dismayed because we had no camera to take a picture of it.
Tomorrow we plan to get up and watch the sunrise but that depends entirely on what time we get to bed tonight so don't know if that will happen! Then we are catching the bus to Brisbane to stay with Laura's Uncle John.
Bye for now. Thank you for taking the time to read our long long blog.
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