On Thursday, April 5, I spent 10 hours travelling by Greyhound bus from Sydney to Coffs Harbour. There wasn’t anything particularly interesting to see out of the window, apart from a couple of small groups of kangaroos. The Aussitel hostel’s minibus picked me up from the bus stop, which was great as it would have been impossibly far to walk with all my luggage. I bought a pizza before realising that the hostel had neither an oven nor a freezer (this isn’t New Zealand), but I made a name for myself by cooking it fairly successfully by balancing it on some forks in a frying pan with another frying pan on top.
The hostel was very sociable, with organised activities such as a Killer Pool competition (in which I didn’t get very far). A group of us went bodyboarding, as it was free to borrow the hostel’s boards, and jetty jumping. The jetty jump was about seven metres, and as I made the mistake of looking straight down, I found it even harder to do than my bungy jump. But I did it twice, to prove it was no accident, and to get some better photos. I was quite proud of myself because none of the other girls from the group would do it. Around 28 of us headed back to the beach after dark to sit around a campfire, chat, toast marshmallows and listen to someone playing the guitar.
I also spent quite a lot of time playing the card game Shithead with Sarah from Germany, and Dan, Mike and Chris who all worked in the hostel or locally. Mike’s Mum had posted him some cookies from Canada, which he shared around. Thanks Mike’s Mum, they were delicious. Sarah and I went for a walk to Mutton Bird Island, from where there was a great view of Coffs Harbour and nearby places, but the sun was in totally the wrong place to get any good photos.
I also went to the botanic garden. Like in Sydney, it was more memorable for the wildlife than the plants. I had a close encounter with a large lizard, and I also saw some rat-like rodents. There were many different bird calls, including one that sounded like mocking laughter, which I felt was aimed at me when I nearly jumped out of my skin after mistaking a log in the creek for a crocodile.
I had a one-and-a-half-hour surfing lesson as it only cost as much as it cost to hire a board and wetsuit for an hour at Bondi Beach, but it was with a group of total beginners and I didn’t really learn anything new. We didn’t wear wetsuits and I got quite a bad rash, but it was good to get some more practice.
Everything was great except when we were woken up at 3.30am by Jeremy being sick over the side of his top bunk onto everything below. It’s been added to the collection of hostel horror stories…