Chaucer Palms Boutique Bed & Breakfast Newcastle

... got broken down
well the scary part definitl had to be where the forest fire had been, you can smell the smoke of the fire being pout out, we drove right past it!! not good, didnt feel tooo relaxed about that, but due to the heat you can see why this weekend had the fires come

after farewells ot the families Kris and drove back to Newie via windhame vineyards to do some wine tasting
the ...

Yeah, so yesterday I got the train from Central in Sydney and headed 2 hours up the coast to the Newcastle area. Bateau Bay, actually, where I've got friends I met in South America. A great married couple: she's from Scotland and he's Australian. They just moved into their house, so when I rolled up yesterday there was a housewarming BBQ in full-swing. They've got BBQ's RIGHT, here in OZ. It's not just eat and peace ...

... Had glorious, uninterrupted sleep due to our room mates not being complete *******s and felt refreshed the next day. Had a bit of an explore round town - not a whole lot happening but a nice enough place. I had a body board in the sea, watching out for some really strong rips and feeling shattered fighting against the currents -still all very good fun, gradually topping up that tan too!!! We managed to collect an obscene amount of free food from Newcastle - as is the ...

... We walked around the beach and harbour in the afternoon and it looked quite nice. The waves on the beach were huge though and we were glad we hadn't planned an extra night there to surf as we wouldn't have been able for it. Had an early night just watched a film in the TV room in the campsite.

We made an even longer 400km trip from Coffs Harbour to Newcastle the next day. We saw our first forest fire along the way but apart from that it was pretty ...

... up, no more listening to reality tv blasted until midnight every night and the new girl seemed really nice and reasonable. This change seemed well worth the one week's rent I would have to foot. Then I got in contact with the landlord. Trish hadn't been very communicative over what was going on, so I took the initiative to contact the landlord myself. And it's great that I did. I sent her an email saying that I was currently living there and that we had found someone to ...

... there winter and it is not fun it has been raining lots i have had to go out and buy winter clothes which of course i did t mind to much and you can get some really great cheap clothes here. Of course i had to get myself some authentic Australian ugg boots which i wear around the house my feet are so cold. In fact I'm sitting here with loads of layer of clothing and a scarf on. It has been freezing recently but at least it has been sunny instead raining. The ...

... between the generic Next-Boots-Debenhams high streets of every single UK town, and Australia. Queen Victoria Building - bah! Where did that come from? Gorgeous, ornate 5 storey shopping arcade. Not so keen on: Darling Harbour - lots of loud, bright places to entertain the kids, not really our kinda thing. Paddy's Market - would have been great for fruit and veg except for all the other people there.

... let us know how the he/Tash/Robbie/baby story ended) & Jack (of course) outside the surf club. We watched them being sprayed, not sure with what, then Jack disappeared (oh no!). Luckily, for us he reappeared wearing nothing but a towel - whoopie! He commented that they had made him get naked and was winging that he had eaten too many burgers in LA (sweetie darlin') - not that anyone cared/noticed. Sadly, he was wearing white boardies under the towel, the ...

... Longboarding Championships- and with good reason too...the wave can be perfect). We managed to catch some real good ones before A giant dark and moving shadow in the water spurred us to paddle into shore. Here we go again. We got out of the water and looked out to see a huge school of fish jumping and swimming, birds swooping down to catch them and a giant fin circling the perimeter...also nearby a couple dolphins were playing ...

... found we had roommates, Tim and Emma from England, of course. They were only staying one night because they work in Sydney. Jim slept for a bit then we went for an awesome walk on the beach. It was a nice, balmy wind. After dinner, we did some trip planning and worked out a rough itinerary to Cairns. Sun. Feb. 25 Jim was up early again, to the sound of noise. He had breakfast while I sat with him, then I went back to bed. He went on a dive course to Manly Beach at 8:30 ...