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East Coast
Our experiences of NSW in a nutshell: beaches, drinking, sea, drinking, more beaches, more drinking. We've just had the most chilled and relaxed few weeks ever!
Starting in Newcastle, we have slowly made our way up the coast to Queensland. We've visited Newcastle, Port MacQuarie, Coffs Harbour, Lennox Head and Byron Bay, spending between 2 nights to a full week in each place. In Port MacQuarie we stayed in an amazing hostel called PM Backpackers which is run buy a guy called Tony. He organises camping trips in a national park right by the sea and on the day we arrived he had to show a journalist round so invited us to join him. It was a beautiful place and we got to see loads of wild kangaroos. While staying there we met lots of great people including two Sweedes, one of whom Craig tried to trade me to, in exchange for his Mum and sister, and who later nearly got arrested for climbing onto the roof of a shop while a security guard sat and watched from his car! We also met Cian from Ireland and Niels from Denmark who we carried on travelling with until Brisbane. We had some very fun drunken nights there including a massive steak and sangria BBQ with stupid drinking games, which resulted in a 4am game of volleyball in the pool. While there we also visited a koala hospital and Billabong Reserve where we got to stroke koalas and snakes.
Coffs Harbour turned out to be a pleasant surprise after we'd been told it wasn't worth visiting and we spent a few days having beach BBQs and making use of the free canoe hire at the hostel. Craig and Niels took it far too seriously though and thought they were in some sort of competition. We inadvertantly visited the Big Banana when we got lost and were pretty disappointed as we'd been imagining something a lot bigger... like the big Prawn in Ballina (very scary).
After spending so much money on hostels we decided to go back to camping, cue more pointing and laughing at out retro A frame tent, and the guys joined us by buying an equally cheap tent although theirs was waterproof. Accommodation was fully booked out in Byron Bay for Australia day so instead we stayed at Lennox Head, 20km south, which turned out to be a great find. The campsite was beside a lovely lake that was the colour and temperature of a cup of tea due to the nearby trees, and across the road from another gorgeous beach.
We spent Australia Day in a bar full of Aussies and really got into the spirit of things (mainly drinking lots). Unfortunately for Craig he can't remember anything as on the way to the bar, Niels who used to be in the army, was demonstrating his army lifts, ran down the street with Craig on his shoulder and slipped in a puddle, nearly knocking him out on the pavement. Craig went missing for the rest of the night and turned up at 3am with no memory of the evening.
In Byron Bay we were joined by Niels' friends from Denmark, Anna and Julie. I was particularly pleased as the guy's main topic of conversation; hot girls and beer, were wearing a bit thin. We all loved Byron Bay and spent a week camping next to Clarks Beach, doing as little as possible. Although touristy, it still has a lovely small town feel and has not been completely over-developed like the Gold Coast. It was also full of a huge array of peoplefrom hippies to expensively dressed holiday makers. We managed to drink an alarming amount of beer, wine and Malibu between the 6 of us and were to be found most nights dancing on the tables of Cheeky Monkey's club. The only downsides were Craig loosing his aligator tooth necklace and flip flops on the beach walk home, me nearly getting electrocuted by Niels' car and waking up in the tent after 3 hours sleep and hungover in the intense morning heat. Me and Craig spotted a tree snake on the beach, think it was lost, but apart from that no dangerous animal encounters to report.
If anyone is wondering why I've not written about newcastle it's because there's nothing to say... apart from it has a lovely beach and has free buses.
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