Youth Hostels Australia!

We've been travelling down the East Coast of Australia for the last few days. After getting a bus from Maleny, where Trudi kindly dropped us, to Nambour, then bus and train down to Brisbane, we picked up a hire car and began our drive.

Getting out of Brisbane was easy, and we were soon on the Pacific Highway. The first night we got to Byron Bay just in time to walk down to the beach for a truly magnificent sunset. The hostel there was large, and well organised - except for a few people two doors down being noisy at 3am, and the fact they clean the bathrooms at 8am!

Then we continued down the coast to Coffs Harbour, and had a lovely walk up onto a little nature reserve/bird breeding ground. By this point I was really beginning to see why people abandon the UK to live here, it is truly truly beautiful.

After Coffs Harbour we drove on to Port Macquarie, and arrived after dark. The hostel here was much more laid back than the one in Byron Bay, but perfectly cosy. In the morning we went to the local koala hospital, then to the Billabong Koala and Wildlife Park.

I'm not too keen on zoos, and the Park brought up these conflicting feelings, but one of the staff members told me the animals were very well looked after... so I just relaxed and enjoyed it. We were able to hand feed kangaroos (and give one a good scratch on his neck!), stroke a koala, and look at all the fascinating unique-to-Australia wildlife that is usually elusive. I was particularly impressed with the wombats!

We took a slow drive down through the Great Lakes, and eventually reached what I think was the end of the Pacific Highway - the end of that road number, anyway, and headed inland a little to the Hunter Valley wine region.

Here our plans have changed somewhat - our WWOOF host for the next week has cancelled on us, so we are staying in the Hunter Valley an extra day and figuring out what we want to do from here on! Possibly heading up to the Blue Mountains on train, which are supposed to be lovely.