Coffs Harbour

One of the Many Beaches in Coffs Harbour
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We hitched a ride six hours up the East Coast of Australia with Dean and his wife Tracy, planning to stay in their new home in Coffs Harbor. What a beautiful place!  At the moment Deans parents Neil and Sue are living at their house while their new home, just down the street, is being built.  Dean and Tracy's home is located just up the block from a beautiful river. The river goes from a full filled river at high tide to a sand bar with dozens of pelicans and native birds hanging around. Just a little farther down the river are the beaches. Two pristine white sand beaches that are basically deserted.

US
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The first day Sue drove us to a neighborhood that is well known to have hundreds of Kangaroos hanging out in peoples front lawns. Peter got some amazing shots of monster males that he was a bit timid to get close to. Peter also got some great shots of females with their young 'joeys' hanging out of the pouches.  Peter was big eyed the entire time! What funny animals.

We spent an afternoon with Neil wading knee deep in pristine water trying to catch fish in the river at low tide.  We haven't really fished much before, so we were totally stoked with the whole thing.  For bate we took time catching these miniature crawdads out of the tide pools.  Peter and I were too scared to actually grab these little things, so Neil had to step in like a father with two little kids to handle the catching and bating of the "nippers."  Our first day out we ended up cleaning house.  Everyone caught two good sized fish each, but the catch of the day went to me...ha ha ha suckers!   I caught a 12 inch Flathead that put up a fight like a 12 foot shark.  I thought I had hooked a marlin, so I was pretty surprised when all I had on the line was this little fish.  Fortunately the fish was big enough to deflate the egos of all of the guys in the house. Luckily for Peter the next day, on his last cast he caught a whopper flathead. Good thing too, we had been catching nothing, only feeding the fish. Peter was pretty proud of himself, but you should have seen his face as he fought this flathead. He really thought he had some wild man eater on the line.  Flatheads are notoriously vigorous fighters, you truly believe the line will brake.

Lazy Ass Roo
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That weekend we headed a couple hours farther up the coast to a camp site with Dean. At the camp site we met up with a mate of Deans, Brett. The camp site was beautiful, right on a deserted beach, of course with good surf. Early the next morning Peter and I where woken up by an eager couple of surfers and ushered down to the beach. Peter was thrown into the frigid water while I opted out and snuggled up in my warm sweater. With the assistance of Brett (a professional surf instructor), Peter was a surfer in no time. He even paddled past the brake and actually surfed on a big wave! All the photos have him on the little waves that where rolling in, but it was absolutely amazing to see him pop up on the 4 foot brake!  Pete told me that Brett was yelling at him "not this one mate, wait, wait...ok, go, go!!!". You could just hear the shouts from Brett and Dean as Peter truly surfed his first big wave. I was so happy for him, he was jumping up and down when he got off his board. While Pete was hanging out past the brake with the big kids a school of dolphins came by to say hello. There must of been 20 plus dolphins swimming amongst the guys, it was amazing. Peter says it was the pinnacle of the trip. Yep, Australia is an amazing place. Thanks Dean, Tracy, Sue, and Neil for showing us such a great time!  It was truly a highlight of our trip.

Roo Scratching His Butt
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We are heading back down to Sydney and in a week we are off to Bali, where we plan to visit another Australian. We can't get enough of these people! We truly had an amazing time in Australia and wish we had more time in order to get down to Melbourne, a month's not very long for such a big country. Next time then. We wish to send a big thank you to everyone here for being so hospitable. We have never been so well taken care of. An especially huge thanks to Brad and Leah, who fed us countless beautiful meals and let us hang out on their couch and play with their two adorable children Luke and Mia, what a beautiful family they are. To all our Australian family, ta!

Big Fella
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p.s. Mom and Dad...we have used up all your collateral of the past decade of taking care of Australian relatives. We keep getting, "your parents have done so much for us (our children) when we visit that its the least we can do". Thanks again.