Today is Saturday the 22nd of January and it has been a while since my last update. This one will not have any pictures unfortunately but I might be able to add some when I get home. The last few days have been awesome. After dropping Shannon off in Sydney I started my solo trip up the coast. My first stop was Newcastle. Newcastle was really nice. Lots of stuff to do and see including many old buldings from the mid to late 1800's. I found so many people to talk to that I didn't get everything done the first day so I had to stay another. I met a guy named Anton from Iceland in the Newcastle YHA (where i was staying). He highly recommended that I stop in Tea Gardens on my way up and stay at a small little hostel called Lazy Paddles www.lazypaddles.com.au. Boy am I glad I did. The hostel was small, had two rooms of three bunk beds (twelve people total) however the rooms weren't full. The hostel was run by a guy named Larry. He is a really relaxed and trusting guy who loves photography, nature, and kayaking. He let us take bikes out for free to see the town or to get to places to hike like Yaccaba. I hiked to the top of Yaccaba (300m) with two girls from Germany. We had a really good hike seeing Koalas in the wild. Since the hike includes about a mile of beach, on the way down we decided to cool off in the ocean. We found a really calm little bay with crystal clear water. It didn't take us long to discover that there were loads of stingrays hiding under the sand. They ranged from about 10-24 inches across. Also Larry has a pile of Kayaks for rent and also runs a 2 hour kayak tour most mornings at 9:00. About 50% of the time they see dolphins on the tour. Unforutnaly when we did the tour there were no dolphins but there were lots of birds and a high tide which allowed us to go into the mangroves. Apparently the best time to see dolphins is early in the morning. The next morning I took one of Larry's kayaks out for a few hours. I traveled up the Myall river in search of dolphins. I left at 7 and by 8 the sun was getting hot and I knew I had been traveling with the current and the paddle back would be longer. So i took a short break and was about to head back when out of the corner of my eye I spot a head sticking out of the grass. A horse? It was big enough... Then it stood up a little further and revealed itself as a massive kangaroo! The largest kangaroo I had ever seen. It was bigger than any of the ones at the zoo and even bigger than the cardboard cut-out of how big kangaroos get (also at the zoo in Sydney). He jumped away before I could get a picture but that's alright. Once I was almost back to the bay where I started I spotted them. Dolphins! I kayaked right along side them until we got into the bay and then I just sat there while they played all around (and under) me. It was really great. I sat out there for another hour or so getting a little sun burnt. It was worth it.

My first night in Tea Gardens I asked Larry to recommend a few good restaurants for me to try. Apparently there are two award winning, yet not to expensive, restaurants within a block of his place. I picked one and sat down at a table by myself in a corner of the nearly full restaurant. There was a guy at a table next to me also dinning alone. He invited me to join him. Turns out his name is Don and is a farmer as well. We talked so long that we closed down the restaurant and at the end of it all he bought me supper. Thanks Don!

My time is almost up on the internet here and those are just a few highlights of my last few days. To everybody back home I am having a blast and i will see you in 7 Days!