Sydney Botanic gardens

I feel this one is pretty self explanatory, so just going to roll the pics. I do love a good gardens so enjoy!

I really do enjoy a good garden, makes me feel happy just looking at these pictures again. Not long till I get to appreciate some lovely English ones.

Sydney

So wifi is seriously lacking at the moment, this is not something i see changing anytime soon as we're off to Fiji today. But who knows maybe they'll beat oz on the wifi, won't be hard. But back to sydney one of the only places that is recognisable in australia to someone who's never been, we were pretty excited to get here. It also had the added bonus of Lucy joining us.

The bridge is actually a lot smaller than I though but the opera house was huge, certainly made up for it.

We had the added joy of getting caught in a delightful storm when we visited the opera house, wind and rain like being back at home.

Yes that actual lighting you see here...

Just for you smart people out there, the pics above are from two separate days, one sunny and one not so much.

But that's circular quay for you, I bet you all recognised most of it! Thanks t.v

Port Macquarie and the koala hospital

Our final stop before getting to sydney was Port Macquarie, it was just a day stop but we did manage to do some exploring and find a koala hospital to visit

And our hostel, the oldest building in Port Macquarie.

The town seemed to have sponsorship going on, much like we did with the rhinos last year in Southampton, so there were koalas everywhere.

The main touristy thing we did was the visit to the koala hospital.

We got there just as a tour started and it also happened to be feeding time. All these koalas had been quite seriously ill at one point so they're feed a special lactose free formula so build strength, not something they'd get for the usual diet of eucalyptus leaves.

This guy loved his food and couldn't get enough.

Neither could this fella either.

This poor girl had a gamma arm, so really struggled to support herself. I would love to say that hearing all these sad stories didn't make me shed a little tear or two, but that would not be the case.

We only saw a few koalas who are more the long term residents as a lot of the newer guys were in the ICU (intensive care unit) and not really for public viewing, being so ill.

The hospital does release as many as possible when back to full health and a few of the younger joeys we're due to go home very soon.

I had a really nice time here, and made sure to donate as they are purely donation ran, no funding at all from the government. All in all a good time in port Macquarie.

Coffs Harbour

This was a place we'd been recommended a few times so were really keen to get here. Not entirely sure what the appeal had been to others, now don't get me wrong the harbour was lovely just not a lot else to do around at all. But I've got a few snaps to share..

So that's Coffs Harbour, I'm at a loss for words on what else to say here (maybe a first) but it did manage to break our trip from Byron to Sydney up nicely so it did have a use.