The first thing I did in
the morning was check whether my camera worked. I was absolutely gutted when I
realised it was completely dead. I had booked to go to a marine park the
following day, and was flying to New Zealand on the Friday so I knew I had to
get it sorted ASAP.
I googled a few camera
repair shops, and it looked like there was a shop called Camera House not too
far from the hostel. Jess and Carla were going to walk around the Kooloonbung
Creek, and the shop was supposed to be on route. We spent a while trying to
find it, but it was nowhere to be seen. I tried to ring them but the number was
disconnected. It was then I saw online the shop had shut down but the details
on the map hadn’t been updated.
I decided after that the
best thing for me to do was to find a Telstra and get an Australian phone. It
was so difficult without internet to get any information or know where I was
going. Luckily Jess let me use her phone to get a rough idea of where I was
going but she had to go with Carla as soon as we got to the creek so I had to
keep going into shops to ask people for directions.
I found Port Macquarie
really hard to navigate but I eventually found the main shopping centre with a
Telstra. I spoke to the salesman and decided on a new phone to get. I had to
wait around 20 minutes to get to the counter as they were so busy, and that’s when
the assistant said she couldn’t sell me a phone without my passport. I had
bought a couple of phones already and no one had ever said that before so I was
really pissed off.
I left Telstra super
stressed and ended up calling mum on WhatsApp (thank god the centre had wifi)
and getting upset in the middle of the shopping centre. I must have looked like
a right idiot but it was the first time in my trip I just really wanted to be
at home. Looking back it was ridiculous but I was really stressed out and sleep
deprived which didn’t help.
Mum told me to just buy
another phone and camera which I decided to do. As Port Macquarie was a tiny
town, my only option was a JB Hi-Fi which is a tech store. Before I went there
I saw a mobile repair shop and went in to see if anyone could do anything. They
didn’t know about fixing my camera but one of the guys looked at my sim card
and told me the pictures were all still there. I was SO relieved they memory
card hadn’t been damaged.
I then decided to stop at
JB Hi-Fi, the Australian version of Currys, to see what cameras they had. On
the way I ended up bumping into Jess and Carla who were on their way back to
the hostel. They came with me and I looked at the different cameras and decided
on the one I was probably going to get.
I went back to the hostel
with Jess and Carla, picked up my passport, and went back to Telstra. I got
lost on the way there as I was trying to remember the route I took but went
down the wrong road. After about half an hour I managed to get a phone which
made getting around a lot easier.
After I had bought my
phone I popped into a Kodak store as a last ditch attempt to save my camera.
The guy in there was really nice and checked the camera but said it was really
unlikely it could be fixed. He did put all my pictures from the memory card
onto a USB which I was grateful for.
I went to JB Hi-Fi and
got the camera. It was the updated version of my original and also the last one
left so I got it for a bit cheaper as it had been on display. There was a
slight issue when no one could find a battery for it, but after almost the
entire store team was searching for it, they found one that fit.
By this time it was around 4pm. I was meant to
be going to a Koala hospital with Jess and Carla in the afternoon so I was a
gutted to have missed it. They said it was good but I hadn’t missed too much
and would probably see similar things at the Koala sanctuary I was planning to
visit in Brisbane, which made me feel better.
I called Jess and we
arranged to meet in Town Beach park to watch the sunset. To get there, I walked
along the breakwall on the water’s edge which was really pretty. All along the
path were painted rocks decorated with quotes, pictures and memorials.
We hung out in the park
for a bit watching the skateboarders and waiting for the sun to go down.
We then walked back down the breakwall to Kooloonbung Creek. We stopped to read most of the rocks so it took us a while.
We were
told by the hostel staff that if you go there just after sunset you can see the
bats wake up and fly down towards the river. It seemed like there were
thousands of them in the trees, they were so loud!
We stayed there for a
while and planned to go for dinner. There was an Irish bar called Finnians that
we looked in, but we decided it was a bit too expensive so we went and bought
food to cook from Coles. From there we walked back to the hostel and had
dinner. I did some blogging and we all just chilled.
I was getting a 1am night
bus to take me to Coffs Harbour that night, so had to sort out all of my
luggage ready to meet my taxi. I said goodbye to Jess and Carla around 9.30ish
and then hung out in the hostel until 12.30am. The wifi went down which was
really frustrating but I spent some time planning out my next few weeks and I
had data on my phone. It was a bit eerie in the hostel after everyone went to
bed as it was mainly outside, so pitch black. My taxi picked me up and took my
down to the bus stop. I was really early, so I called Grahame and spoke to him
until the bus picked me up. It was a 3 hour journey, but I didn’t get any
sleep! :(
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