I am so over lookouts

Monday morning arrives all too soon and our first challenge is to fit all our luggage into the car...a bit of a space saving exercise and we finally fit everything and everyone into the car! Kit and Betty got on so well that Kit started to splash out on the 'quality' unleaded petrol (Gem means 'Premium' ;-) KC) to feed her - once again the budget has gone out of the window! :)

After filling the car with petrol we found a McDonalds from which we purchased some quality junk food (just going through my reciepts, here!) On the bill we appear to have a Quarterpounder with cheese meal, 6 chicken nuggets meal, two cheeseburgers, some BBQ sauce and a pot of sweet chilli sauce. What would you do without me filling you in on the finer details?! I'm offerering a prize of a deluxe weekend break in Norwich, complete with sofa and sleeping bag accomodation to anyone who match up all 6 items to the correct traveller! Answers in the comments section, please. KC

Our first day we spent driving through the very green Blue Mountains...we are so over lookouts right about now! Another one of Kit's hunches meant we took more than four hours to go what we thought would take two hours and we finally arrive in Newcastle...check the map and we have gone all of 5mm! It wasn't all bad though - we got to do some star-gazing along the way! (Yeah, it was amazing - totally different stars to the ones we see back home and not a cloud in the sky! KC) By the time we had arrived and settled into the hostel is was about 9pm - perfect time to get some dinner before going to sleep...wrong again people, restaurants here shut at about 6pm and you are left with takeaway pizza or bed on an empty stomach - you gotta do what you gotta do :)

We left Amy in bed the next day in an attempt to recover some energy, she is currently on about 50 paracetemol and 27 hours of sleep a day ;) Kit and I headed out to discover the sights and sounds of Newcastle, we visited the beach which was the equivalent of an intense all over exfoliating session - the wind/sand combination got too much after a while not to mention the toxic looking blue jellyfish that line the beach and make swimming in the sea completely impossible unless you want to spend the next part of the day bathing in vinegar, which some people apparently did?! We headed back into the town for some lunch, a haircut, we tried to find the fort and instead discovered some pac man grafitti which was far more interesting anyway! We visited a very helpful chemist who diagnosed Amy with a middle ear infection and gave her a food ice pack!!

We dined out in a posh-ish restaurant that evening where Kit felt the need to throw his credit card away - who needs money huh! Luckily we were all such good hide and seek candidates when we were younger that we didn't have any trouble tracking it down!!

The party on the road continued the next day...we headed to Port Macquarie via Nelson's Bay which held the promise of dolphins, but no :( Instead we ate...Kit had pancakes, Amy had scrambled eggs and I had scrambled eggs and sausages minus the sausages. We drove a fairly long distance out of the way to visit Seal Rocks which neither had any seals on it nor looked like a seal - however Kit seemed to enjoy risking death by clambering all over the rocks so all was not lost! Mum, I swear it's all lies! KC

We arrived in Port Macquarie and settled into our next home...cooked up a storm on the BBQ in the rain and headed out to the trivia night at Down Under in the town. We actually won something!! - $10 to spend on drinks in the bar which was enough to buy a round of JD, Vodka and Scotch - prices to rival Vietnam here! Although considering how drunk we WEREN'T after 7 or 8 rounds i.e. we weren't raring to get up and join the Karaoke clan, we are not convinced the alcohol content was that great. The locals however were all over it and loving it...we on the other hand were loving the 'Wayne and Waynetta do singing' as our free entertainment for the night.

We lost Kit to the sea the next day along with his boogie board (body board!) while me and Amy tried to make whatever we were doing not look like shopping :) We popped into the Koala hospital and kidded ourselves that we might actually wash Betty Boo but opted for videos and beer instead! Kit made us watch Sliding Doors, he claims it's like his favourite film ever ;) We also watched 'The Castle', which I would recommend to anyone who's into an underdog story or two. KC

One more day on the road and this time we had the immense pleasure of seeing the Big Banana, Australia's oldest fruit-like attraction at forty years old...DO NOT GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO SEE THIS "ATTRACTION", it's pants. We also by-passed (I think Gem means passed-by, but I'm just getting picky now! KC) the Big Prawn and my favourite of all of them the Ayers Rock replica come petrol station come hotel! (I got told off for calling it Ayer's Rock when I got back, I wonder if the politically correct internet police will be after us?! KC) The lonely planet advised leaving all cynicism at the door which Kit and Amy bought suitcases of and they couldn't quite shake the feeling they were in some sort of mad twilight zone, aye well :)

We made it to Byron Bay and then refused to go any further! And who would want to? Ahhh... could there be a better surf / party / sunburn spot in the world? If so, I've yet to find it! KC