Quality Suites The Cove Yamba

So far, Yamba has been my favorite place in Australia--btwn the numerous beaches, the friendly and welcoming community, the kangaroos everywhere! And many more reasons...you'll see why.
When I arrived to Nicole and Lucas' beach shack, located directly behind Lucas' parents' house on Yamba Rd, I was greeted with a note that read 'welcome to your Yamba beach shack' and a sign that said 'Mel's room'. I opened the door adn my room was even ...

... the effect must be very pretty. From there I stopped at the town of MacLean which claims to be the most Scottish town in Australia. It was founded by Scottish settlers in the late 1800s and is fiercely proud of it’s heritage. The streets are all called McCloud, Ave or Argyle St or some such name there are highland games, highland parades a Scottish cairn and everything Scottish that you can think of. So much so that in 2002 they decided to ...

... There was a tiny cinema which looked so cute! This town has maybe four streets and they had a cinema which made me laugh!! I went on a few fishing expeditions with Ewan and read my book! He managed to catch a few small ones ;) I think he is disparing that there are no fish in the sea over the size of his hand!!! We saw dolphins while we were sitting on the rocks!! Amazing! We now have a beach umbrella! It is too hot to sit in the sun all day!!

... the group of surfers happy, I'm sure all Aussie kids are born wearing wetsuits! The nearby inland blue pool had been formed from the quarry where all the stone for the Yamba breakwater had been taken. It was just next to the long beach and gave the choice of fresh or seawater swimming. As a surfers beach it was overlooked by some very exclusive property. Over the hill was the 'Wooloweyah Lagoon', an enormous lake similar in size to the English 'Lake Windermere', a stone ...

... out for a Matheson, there didn't appear to be one. Ah well. There was really nothing of note about this town, apart from a very very expensive laundrette, can't imagine they get many tourists stopping off! The best thing about Maclean was certainly the temperature..for the first time in quite a while, it was warm! So warm, that we had to sleep with the windows open in the van...fingers crossed this was a sign of things to come as we headed north!

... Ok, ok, stop whinging i hear you say. But i can't. First night me and Caroline sit down to tuck into dinner (after fighting our way through one of the most un-user friendly hostel kitchens to date...) and mid sentence i get interupted by a voice over a loud speaker: "People in the kitchen, we can see you're not washing your dishes. Remember to wash your dishes." blah blah blah for 5 (yes, 5!!!) minutes a big lecture. Cue my comment about how big ...

... use under the water. I plan to do this course in Magnetic Island. It was time for us to go snorkeling, there were four people for snorkeling and the rest were diving. I could not dive since I do not have my diving certificate. They took us down to the beach where we were all got onto a speed boat. We headed towards the rocks, which is actually the top of a mountain under water. It was a good feeling being in the boat, but you had to hold on very ...

... use them. Ha! local knowledge proved to be right and it pretty much rained the entire time. Although the heavy short-lived-tropical-downpours are much easier tollerated than the steady drizzle in the uk in April. So armed with plastic bags to sit on, rain coats, plenty of food for james bottomless pit, we arrived at the festival to be met by a strangely dressed crowd of aussie festival goers. Apparantly the ...

... and I managed to get a kiss of a dolphin and also a seal when we visited a sea life center there. I gotta say the seal had a very soft touch,( it actually felt quite nice!) but did really smell of fish! Arriving at Byron Bay was great. The weather was really nice and managed to get a pitch on the campsite right on the beach. The surf is the best here and I've been surfing every day. We've booked up for another week here and going to see what happens!

We left Sydney the day after boxing day, as planned. First stop was Newcastle, having first got lost, ending up in a charming little beach town called The Entrance (popular with gays - hahaha, not really, but it should be!!). We stayed overnight in Nelson's Bay, Port Stephens. It was our first go at setting up the van, so you'd have thought we'd have planned to get to the site early, wouldn't you? Well, we hadn't realised that when setting off, we ...