Byron Bay, Nimbin and Port Macquarie...

After saying our goodbyes to the guys in Brisbane, we hit the road again, this time for the short hop over the border into NSW, and the delights of Byron Bay. Byron is a full-on backpacker city, with loads of hostels, backpacker bars and clubs, and more adventure trip-booking places than you could reasonably expect in a town of a mere 5,000 people.

Having said that, we both really enjoyed our time there. I marched Clare around Cape Byron on our first day there, but I'm pretty sure she ended up loving it as we spotted a load of dolphins which were either hunting fish or just having fun mucking about in the surf. We also went to Cape Byron lighthouse, which is Australia's most easterly point, geographical extremity fans.

That night we decided to go for a few pints to belatedly celebrate Clare's birthday. We found a suitably 'local' looking place, a bar close to the railway station (aptly named 'The Rails'). Great place, bad idea. Poor Clarey had about 4 beers and felt decidedly unwell. She has vowed from now on never to drink again, blaming some king of hereditary condition for her vicious illness after drinking. I think she just needs to find something new to drink! (cider, maybe?).

The next day we caught the 'Happy Bus' to Nimbin. Some of you may have heard of Nimbin. For those that haven't, it's like the stoner capital of Oz, full of hippie shops and people offering you pot and pot-based confectionaries. As ex-President Clinton would have said, we visited but we didn't inhale. Nimbin is in a beautiful location, next to the Nimbin Rocks, a sacred aboriginal site, where young aboriginal guys scaled the impossibly steep rocks to prove they were 'clever', only to be promptly circumcised by two sharp rocks if they got back to terra firma in one piece. Ouch.

After leaving the delights of Nimbin and Byron behind, we headed off down the coast to Port Macquarie, home of Australia's only Koala Hospital. We did a tour of the 'ward', watching the various patients happily chewing on gum leaves with little bandages over their paws or whatever else was hurt. All very cute. One Koala had even 'self admitted' itself with a broken leg when it had got hit by a car in town. It's now well on the way to a full recovery, you'll be happy to hear.

That evening, we boarded the bus for our final leg of our journey down the east coast, back to Sydney. It took us in total just twenty days to do the entire 2500-odd km from Cairns to Sydney, and we're now having a well deserved (yeah, right you're probably thinking!) rest at Clare's friend Mel's house in Sydney before the flight to NZ early next week.

More from NZ!

-Si