Coffs Harbour

Coffs Harbour

I stayed two nights in a town called Coffs Harbour. There was not a lot of stuff to do there but it was enjoyable. I arrived Saturday afternoon. On Saturday I just walked around and tried to figure out where I was and see what was there. The hostel was SO much nicer than the last one! It was really big. The manager told me he tells people to avoid the nasty one I was at before.

On Sunday they have markets in the morning. They were terrible. I was expecting to find really awesome stuff but it was all junk. I did buy some Australian Olive Oil I will mail home (once I figure out how to do that..). The man selling it grows the olives and everything. It is really tasty. I went with a girl I had met at the previous hostel. We walked past these camels and this man asked us if we wanted to do a camel ride. We had to pay $10. It was pretty much like a pony ride at the fair but it was still fun. He had four camels tied to each other and we just walked around a field. It was basically us and a bunch of kids with their parents. We couldn't stop laughing because it was so silly. When we got on they had us load on the back of a truck but to get off the camel laid down and we climbed off. The camels look really funny when they are laying down. Camels seem so peaceful and easy going.

After the markets I walked around the town a little bit. I ended up getting way too hot and muggy and decided to come inside for a bit and book a few more parts of my trip. Later in the day I went down to the beach. I got to walk down the Jetty they have. It was built in the early 1900s. While on the Jetty I saw a huge sting ray swimming along the bottom of the ocean. He was amazing! I could see him from the Jetty, I wasn't even snorkeling! I was surprised how close he was to the shore. He was probably about 4 feet long. They had a little nature walk I went on too. After, I sat and read for a while on the beach but it started to get cloudy. I went back to the hostel to start packing my things and met a new girl in the room. She was from England and has been here for about a year working. I told her I was having issues finding anyone to go out to eat with me because they all make food and eat at the hostel. She said she has the same problem and would love to go eat. We tried a few places but they were closed because it was a slow Sunday so we ended up at this little Italian place. While we were eating this insane lightening and thunderstorm hit! It even started hailing. The hail pieces were huge! I couldn’t get over the lightening. It was amazing and seemed really close to us. The sky kept cracking and popping and lighting up everywhere. When we left there was about an inch or two of water in various places. To say the least we had an eventful walk back to the hostel.

I left Coffs Harbour on the bus today at 6:00 am. It took about five hours to get to Byron Bay, which is where I am now. This place has a lot of hippies. I think it is a huge party town so I might not get any sleep from the noisy people. It looks like there are some interesting stores to go into. I have heard the beaches are nice and you can kayak with the dolphins! The girls in my room don’t seem very friendly but that is OK. I will be here for two nights and then I am going to Brisbane. I might to to the Steve Irwin zoo while I am there!

I am thinking about buying an airplane ticket in Brisbane and flying up to Cairns instead of taking the bus. The bus would be about 20 hours and a plane would be 2. I didn’t pay tons for the bus ticket so I wouldn’t be too upset if I lost money. I would like to stay in one place for more than a few nights. The place I really want to go is the Great Barrier Reef, which is in that city. I get sick of having to unpack and repack everything every few days.

I can’t believe how expensive things are here. I think part of it is because there minimum wage is somewhere around $15. There is a face soap I use that in the USA is $3 a bar. It is $12 a bar here! Insane! I also found mascara that is $6 at home and $18 here. Food is pretty expensive too but I find that if you get out of the touristy areas the price goes down a bit. I think if I had known how expensive this country was to visit I would have considered going somewhere else. But I suppose anywhere ends up being expensive.