1st Day of Contiki - Sydney to Coffs Harbour

Large Banana in Coffs Harbour.
see all photos »

I got up around 6:30am, showered, and checked out of the hotel. We met in the lobby checked in for the tour, put our luggage on the bus, and headed for a group photo with the entire Contiki group with the Sydney Opera house and the Harbour Bridge in the background. I costs $15 for the photo, so I haven't decided whether I am going to buy it or not. We then headed for Coffs Harbour and the Gold Coast, which was about a six hour bus ride from Sydney. After a few hours of driving we stopped for some breakfast or morning tea at a truck stop. I went to McDonald's and got a bacon, egg, & cheese muffin meal, since they only had enligh muffins sandwiches. Next stop was at Forster Beach to grab some lunch and have a look around. I only got a foot long hot dog and a bottle of water since we had stopped only a few hours earlier for breakfast. I walked to the beach and ate my lunch and watched the waves roll in. Alot of the beaches in Australia have concrete salt water pool built right on the beach which is pretty cool. There was some surf rescue guys, life guards, doing some training with an inflatable boat at the beach. We eventually made it to Coffs Harbour, which is known for growing bananas. It was popular for cities along the Gold Coast to put up huge symbols of what their city was famous for on the tops of buildings. I got a picture of a really huge metal banana as we enter Coffs Harbour. We stayed at the Pelican Beach Resort Australis which was a pretty nice hotel right on the beach. Once we arrived we checked in and I was rooming with a German named Tielo, and two Americans named Larry and Brock. We then headed for the pool and spa area. It was happy hour at the bar, so I had a few Carlton Draughts and relax by the pool. The pool had a waterfall and was really big. I ended up ordering a pizza from Dominoes with an Austrian couple and my German roommate. We ordered two large pepperoni pizzas and it cost about $30 and took about forty minutes. When the pizzas arrived we were very disappointed in the size of the pizza they were maybe 10" across if we were lucky. I ate my half of pizza and was still a little hungry, but I just had some beer to fill me up the rest of the way. We hung out at the bar until it closed at 10pm and went to bed.

I got a picture of a really huge metal banana as we enter Coffs Harbour.