Armidale was freezing. Not quite freezing but very cold. It'd been pushing 22C degrees in Sydney in the days up to our trip and to be faced with 5C instead was a bit unwelcome. Despite being so much further north than Sydney it's 1000m above sea level and, as the Armidale tourist website likes to point out, is the highest city in Australia. View Larger Map I acclimatised by drinking a coffee the size of my head for breakfast. Seeing as we'd left a really long drive to the end, we didn't have much time to see anything in Armidale itself, except for a few kangaroos who didn't seem to mind the cold. And just like the emus and horses together before I was surprised to come across camels at one stage. The drive back promised to be nice enough, away from the main highway and through more farming countryside, down a scenic drive excitingly called Thunderbolts Way. We stopped at the best lookout point along the way but instead of a grand view we got.. It's hard not to feel a little cheated as one look on flickr and you can find plenty of evidence that on a nice day the view is great.

To continue the abandoned theme, our hotel in Coffs Harbour turned out to be a huge resort style place which upon checking in looked like we had all to ourselves. The huge reception area opened onto cheesy fountains that led down steps to a huge floor to ceiling view of the private garden and beach beyond. But looking out at the stormy sea and then seeing no one bar the staff behind the check-in desk, it felt like the place was being evacuated for a hurricane. View Larger Map The next day wasn't much better. We tried a quick visit to the tropical botanic gardens. We walked down the pier and watched the sea breach over the stone barriers at the mouth of the harbour. But that was it. Despite all the leaflets advertising dolphin shows, whale watching, horse riding, and of course the Big Banana, on that wet and windy day there didn't look much to do. The next town was much nicer though. Our drive was to take us from Coffs Harbour through Waterfall Way, a drive through the scenic "New England Highway" that promised plenty of waterfalls and rolling pasture as far as Armidale a few hours west. The first stop on the way was Bellingen, another town promoted by NSW tourism, this time for its well preserved architecture. And it was a great little town. But it wasn't until we were having our third coffee for our third sit-down (a cafe with floor to ceiling random crap like broken food processors and antique typewriters) that we really noticed the locals were dressing just a little bit different. Even the toddlers were dressed as hippies. I guess we were the last to know that far from just being some well preserved Victorian display piece, the town was home to a population of artists and musicians and general alternative folk. Definitely not what we were expecting after the Big Banana. When we occasionally got lucky with the weather and got to see some beautiful countryside; great views down onto farm fields turned silver by the winter with solitary trees scattered about that looked straight out of a painting. You really could be forgiven you were somewhere in rural France were it not for the times when the forest would close up on the road and you'd instantly be driving through Australian woodland with great strips of bark peeling off gum trees. Or pulling over at the side of the road to find that beyond the fence were horses and emus. We continued on to Dorrigo National Park, somewhere worth spending a few days if we weren't afraid of scratching the paint off our rented hatchback. Places like that are a good reminder why so many people here drive SUV's. The park had an elevated walkway over the rainforest and a series of walks down through it. And as if on cue as soon as we started walking the rain came back. But a rainforest is a perfect for rain so it didn't ruin anything. There were signs dotted about teasing us with the possibility of seeing such exotic animals as a Lyre Bird, but all we saw was another brush turkey We were still a couple of hours outside of Armidale but wanted to stop at the biggest waterfall along the way even if it was raining. And it was pretty cool. But then I made the most novice of mistakes for drivers in Australia and forgot to stop for petrol. The dial was perilously close to E. I felt relieved to find there was a petrol station marked on the map at the next town which looked about twenty minutes down the road. So it was with some dread that we arrived there, at this tiny "town" off the main road with one closed shop and a single out-of-order petrol pump, the fuel dial in the car sitting at E and there being a good 45-minutes to our destination, Armidale. I had a vision of having to pull off in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, and having to thumb a lift to the next town while leaving my wife in the car at the side of the road. In the movies, one or the other is always gruesomely killed right? So I turned off the radio, stopped using the break and tried to coast as much as I could. The dial can always go way past empty right? I certainly found out because with my heart in my mouth we coasted into Armidale on petrol fumes an hour later.

We tried to extract all the funness we could in the morning before setting off for Coffs Harbour. The driving rain that greeted us the night before had mostly blown out and we could almost see the attraction of the place from atop a nearby lookout (complete with decommisioned canon) looking out onto stormy seas. View Larger Map We were taking the scenic route to Coffs Harbour, stopping in the small town of South West Rocks about half way along for lunch. This was voted one of the best towns in NSW according to another tourist website so I thought that it would at least warrant a short coffee break. The driving there was mostly through now flooded farmland, dotted with cows being groomed by big white birds perched on their backs. But South West Rocks was a major disappointment. There were plenty of caravans raised up on blocks to indicate this was somewhere worthy of attention, but that afternoon I just couldn't see it. It was too windy to enjoy sitting at the beach and the rain kept threatening. The only major attraction was the old "Gaol" just outside town, perched atop a hill. It was probably the oldest structure for hundreds of miles, built in the 1800's to house prisoners who were responsible for building a wharf for ships passing through the treacherous waters. I got that from the sign outside. We got there less than half an hour before closing and one look at the outside of the building was enough to persuade me against paying the huge entrance fee. We got back onto the main road quickly and made our way straight to Coffs Harbour to catch the Big Banana before sundown. This is the cities major attraction and sort of the whole reason we came (I'm only sort of joking on both counts). In the winter on a Sunday afternoon though, the closed Big Banana (plantation? fairground?) looked more like a Japanese abandoned fairground, with faded signs advertising rides and displays that looked like they'd long since seen their last customer. Even the banana trees themselves looked tired and worn out. The only other people there were tourists in a similar state of bewilderment realising like us that of course it would be closed this late on a Sunday. However, we did our duty, posed below the giant banana out front, and thus was our whole trip worthwhile. Then the rain came back

It was suitable that I sat down at lunch the other day in the middle of a heated discussion about banana prices. Because our weekend trip was taking us to Coffs Harbour, the only place in NSW that can grow bananas and, and only one of the few growing regions undamaged by last season's cyclones. View Larger Map Seeing as plans are firming up to leave Oz for good soon (gasp!) we thought it would be good to get in another driving trip. This turned out to be our longest by far and my first 1000km+ journey with me behind the wheel. The first day consisted of a drive up to Port Maquarie, a small seaside resort six hours up the coast. This would normally have been quite scenic but we managed to choose one of the worst weekends to do it. We drove through countless bursts of torrential rain (heavy enough so that we could barely see 10 metres in front of the car) and not much sunshine. Port Maquarie didn't look it's best in winter either, and arriving in the rain, in the evening, looking for something to eat and only finding a few signs written in a classic 1970's style wedge-shaped font promising "Chinese" food was a bit discouraging. We did find a Thai place that looked ok but was a little surprised to find, for the first time, not to see a single Asian person (staff or customers) in a place that serves Australia's favourite takeaway. But maybe that was just a sign we'd left Sydney.

I've been pretty lax in checking in here because the mother superior was over for a few weeks on her first visit/inspection down under. I took a couple of those weeks off work and donned my best tour guide cap to show her around. We went to the beach, the blue mountains, the fish market, the Hunter Valley - basically all the places I went to after coming here. If it hadn't been for the fact that almost everywhere we ate out had awful service (is that just bad luck or the result of having 3 at a table instead of 2??) she would have been well impressed. The one new place we got to visit was Jervis Bay, south of Sydney about 3 hours. We stayed overnight in a shabby motel at Huskisson town by the beach looking forward to the area's famed white sands the next day. Of course it was raining. Again. (I took about 100 photos during the 5-minutes of sunshine in the whole day). But the break and the drive south was really nice and I saw my first wallaby in the wild! However, it's just as well she only stayed for three weeks though, because any longer and we would have seriously run out of things to do. As nice as Sydney is, there's only so much to see without getting bored of the beach or coffee, and especially without a car permanently at your disposal.

Finally going back to Dublin for a couple of weeks tonight. Its been over a year and, apart from anything else, I'm curious to see just how much the place has changed given the crash. I'm not curious to find out just how sore the 16 hours + 7 hours flights will be. I checked in yesterday online, immediately after I was notified that it was open, and already all the exit row seats had been chosen! How does that happen? Memories of a bad Qantas flight coming out here have me crossing my fingers for a good seat tonight.