When I arrived in Australia, I was ready for some downtime. I had been travelling very quickly the last few weeks, visiting 5 different countries within about 3 weeks. I flew overnight from Singapore to Sydney, then had a 5h wait for my connection to Port Macquarie where I got picked up by Mathijs and his sister Michelle in the late afternoon. The next 12 days we spent at Michelle and Jack’s place, going on small day trips now and then.

We spent some time exploring the area around Laurieton – the highlight being our climb up Big Nellie mountain and some lookouts nearby with pretty views.

In Laurieton we ate some of the best fish & chips I’ve ever had. In between, we visited some beaches, went whale watching unsuccessfully a couple of times, did a coastal walk and checked out the flying foxes in Port.

On the weekend, all of us went to visit Jack’s family near Newcastle and his dad took us out sailing which was lots of fun! I also participated in horse betting for the first time – and straight away won 40 dollars. Not too bad, huh?

We also had lots of fun watching the many colourful birds of the area and trying to take the best pictures of them.

In between all that, we also relaxed a lot, and got ourselves organized for the start of our trip. And then, on a Thursday evening, we hopped on the night train to Brisbane, where we boarded our first flight of our world trip together – to Honiara, Solomon Islands.