Cheekiemonkies' Great Aussie Road Trip: Day 9

25th June: The East Coast - Coffs Harbour

After getting sufficient rest, we set off early once more on our great Aussie Road Trip. Today would be a relatively short drive - about 2.5 hours, 'cos we planned to stop at Coffs Harbour for the night.

Which is good as that meant that we would have more time to stop along our drive for more sightseeing... and first up was the Billabong Koala Wildlife Park.

Well, with a name like that, it isn't too difficult to figure out which animal is the superstar attraction of the wildlife park. Hee hee...

The main draw of the park is that it allows visitors to get up close to practically all of its animals, with various feeding and patting times for the different animals. Ans since the koala is the star, di-di & I got to stroke its back, and also to take a photo with him.

But I think he was feeling a little shy lah.

Besides the koala, the park also features a wide variety of Australian and exotic animals, reptiles and birds, like monkeys, kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, cassowaries, quolls, crocodiles, lizards, snakes, parrots & lorikeets.

The park wasn't very huge, but it was just nice for us to take our time to explore and check out the different interesting animals.

Well, I hastened my steps when I knew that we were heading to the kangaroos enclosure next... 'cos I was so looking forward to feeding all of them!

I think they were so happy to see me too, 'cos they all rushed towards me when I came close. Erm... either that, or they were just plain hungry. :P

And for the first time, I saw a little joey peeking out of his mummy's pouch. So cute!

We let the kangaroos finish up whatever food we had left 'cos we needed to catch another animal show.

The Dingo's show, that's what it was...

The brownish one is called Ernie, while the beige one is Beauty. Beautiful creatures aren't they? The uncle told us some interesting facts regarding the dingo, before brining Ernie out for us to interact with him.

And he was super friendly, giving a mighty lick to di-di's face. Hahaha...

And with that, we had a quick lunch before setting off once again. This time, di-di & I blissfully nodded off to sleep and when we awoke, we found ourselves already in Coffs Harbour! Was that fast or what??? :P

If you are in Coffs Harbour, you definitely cannot miss the Big Banana as you drive along the road. And since we had some time to spare, we decided to pop into the place to look-see-look-see.

As you can already tell, the whole place was full of growing - what else - bananas! Di-di's fave fruit by the way. Heh.

Actually there're lots of other things to do there lah... like tobogganing (much like the luge on Sentosa), triking, ice skating and a waterpark for those who want to get wet. But pity that we didn't have that much time, so we couldn't try them.

So we did the next best activity - climbing the long flight of stairs at the banana plantation all the way to the top.

They say - I don't know who exactly - that one can actually see whales in the distant sea during their migration periods. But I guess it wasn't one of our lucky days.

Oh well, there was still the small matter of looking for an accommodation to stay for the night... and we found it at Darlington Beach Holiday Park.

The cabin was a self-contained one, with a kitchenette (home-cooked meals, yay!!!) and these fabulous bunk beds! Woohoo!

We didn't have much time to laze around though, 'cos after yesterday's nice time out at the beach, di-di & I requested Daddy & Mummy to bring us to the beach once more.

And how lucky - we had a nice beach just behind the holiday park! Hahahaha...

And just like the day before at Forster, we were delighted to be able to just while away the time by playing with the sand and waves.

That was til Daddy became bored, and decided to ka-jiao us. :P

So we strayed further away from him to concentrate on our own play...

But Daddy didn't give up and tried to be funny once more.

So no choice, I have to use my superpower strength to throw him up into the air.

Glad to say he got my 'subtle' hint after that. HAHAHAHA!

But seriously, we all had a good time at the beach... and to top off a what has been a really fun day, there was a giant Jumping Pillow in the holiday park for us to jump like crazy!

You should have seen us bouncing up and down the pillow... all the better to work up a ferocious appetite for dinner.

Yep, it was time to head back to our cabin for a hot bath and yummy home-cooked dinner after that as the sun was setting. We'll soon reach the land of all Theme Parks tomorrow and frankly, di-di & I can't wait!!!