The week after we got back to Sydney from Melbourne, we took the Murphys' car again and headed up the east coast. We had all planned a week in an apartment on the Gold Coast, and David, Vix and Aaron took a plane up there while we left two days before them with the car - it meant that we got to spend another couple of days exploring the coast and camping, and that we all had the car for the week once we got there; perfect.

We had a lovely couple of days in the car, stopping off at The Entrance for lunch (quite pretty) and then driving for a good few hours in the afternoon and early evening. We camped overnight at Jerseyville, right on the South Head rocks and went for a paddle in the sea the next morning in the sunshine - what a lovely way to start the day! We drove on for a couple of hours and stopped in Coff's Harbour for lunch as David had recommended it over Port Macquarie and it was nice enough but nothing to write home about (so I shan't). We later found out that David had got the two places the wrong way round and in fact it was Port Macquarie where we should have stopped - nevermind!

We spent our second night at Byron Bay; we found a nice campsite that was fairly close to one of the beaches there and once we'd pitched our tent, we wandered across to watch the sunset over the sea which was beautiful. This is something which has really struck us about Australia - the sunrises and sunsets are incredible. As you trawl through our photographs (if you're brave/unoccupied enough) you'll see quite a few although we've tried to edit the pictures down so that they don't get too boring.

That evening, we took the car into town to find somewhere to eat and ended up in the local social club. The food was actually quite nice, but the place was obviously where all the locals go every night for their entertainment, mostly slot machines and other gaming. The backpackers were all lined up outside the local nightclub but we're far too rock 'n' roll for that so we had a nice dinner and headed back to the campsite to watch Life on Mars in the TV room...

We started our next morning with a walk and a paddle on the beach again (could get used to this) before driving the last hour or so up to the border of New South Wales and Queensland, where our apartment was. There is an hour's time difference between the two states which seems crazy to those of us who live on a small island but when each state in Australia could fit several Great Britains into it, it starts to make a little more sense. However, it meant that we lost an hour, which wasn't an issue apart from when we drove to the nearest supermarket and gained it back again as the supermarket was about half a mile away, in New South Wales. We lost the hour again once we'd done the food shopping, and settled into our lovely apartment which was a few minutes from the beach and overlooked the sea. The five of us spent a lovely, relaxing week together taking it easy. On our second day, David and Simon enjoyed a really great day driving V8s which had been a birthday present to both of them from Vix (their birthdays are 6 days apart), and Vix, Aaron and I spent a lovely day walking along the beachfront and nosing around the market there which was filled with interesting handmade trinkets and paintings.

We all spent a great three days at Movieworld which is a Warner Brothers theme park, Seaworld where we saw all sorts including some very cool diving polar bears, and Wet 'n' Wild which was great fun. Simon and I had also looked into skydiving while we were there, but in the end the weather conditions weren't right and we couldn't go (I was secretly slightly relieved as I am a big 'fraidy-cat).

On the Saturday morning, we said goodbye to the Murphys at the airport, and the we headed back down the coast to get home. We took the New England Highway this time and so we weren't on the coast, and the scenery was beautiful - almost easy to think that we were in Australia and not Yorkshire. We spent a night camping in Glen Innes (apparently it's the Land of the Beardies - Google it if you're in any way curious...) and then drove the rest of the way back to Sydney the next day - not bad going for a 900km journey!