When did we end up back home?!

Wednesday, November 24, 2010 Katie and Taylor
The pilgrimage north up the East Coast spurs images of sunshine, sea and sand! Unfortunately the weather for us has been reminiscent of an Easter holiday in Scotland, of course sprinkled with a few matches of sunshine. We docked into a beautiful wee town called Bellingen which had the local community market full in full swing with hippies selling everything from plants to bubbles, but as the Scots have brought the weather with us, it rained Koalas and Roos (not sure if it rains cats and dogs here.)


Our first major stop along the coast was Coffs Harbour, famous for its Big Banana (crazy Australians!) In fact there is a huge banana on the outskirts of town, which we had to get a ridiculous photo in front of as modelled by Katie below! Coffs Harbour, or "Coughs" Harbour as I call it was where I had a wee dose of the deadly man flu, so we holed up in a motel for a night of films, tea and munchies. 


The flu never abated the next day even visiting MacLean which is a Scottish heritage town in the middle of nowhere didn't help. It is twinned with Portree, sells Haggis and every lamp post in town is painted with a different type of tartan. We spent the night near Lismore was the venue for us to watch the final of the Australian X Factor. Its the shows first year over here and although it isn't quite to the same standards as the UK equivelant, it was nice for a bit of home comfort. Ronan Keating is one of the judges and you'll be glad to hear his singer Altiyan Childs won! 


Next on our route was Nimbin, king of the alternative lifestyle! In the 70's this little town hosted something called the Aquarius festival and a few stalwarts hung around after and created their own little community. Cue being asked on every corner if we wanted hash, mushrooms or amphetamines. I was just waiting to be asked if I wanted to buy a hug. The drive from Nimbin to Byron Bay was almost like driving back home, through the moors on a summers day, simply stunning! 




Byron Bay was our last stop in New South Wales before hitting Queensland and is a true backpacker heaven. Cheap food, even cheaper drinks and luckily for us some sun! We even managed to sneak in seeing the new Harry Potter film on the cheaper Tuesday, cause we're Scottish and love a bargain. Cape Byron on the coast is Australias Easterly most point and it's easy to see dolphins playing in the waves below, the walk also goes through some pretty sections of Bushland where we spotted a wild Wallaby with her joey. 






In case you aren't up to speed with school holidays in Australia, at the end of high school there is a party for them all up the east coast which lasts a few weeks, the focal point for it is Surfers Paradise. Guess what? We are hitting it right at the busiest time so surprisingly enough we only docked in for a few hours in here as it is over run with lots of wee kids (or Scoolies as they are called here) and apart from making us feel old (or being classed toolies-too old to be schoolies), the prices have sky rocketed for everything. Attractions are similar to Florida such as theme parks, water parks, zoos etc so we are sitting just now deciding if we want to stump up for a theme park this afternoon.


Next stop is Brisbane for the weekend where we are meeting up with Elaine for a good ol' Scottish shindig!
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