3rd February:

After seeing everyting Sydney has to offer, the time has come to move onto the next destination, Byron Bay. Byron Bay is known for its bohemian atmosphere and hippie lifestyle so i was excited to experience this kind of community. However the 13 hour bus journey i was not looking forward to. We chose to go overnight on the greyhound bus hoping we would possiby sleep most of the way which i did manage to get a bit of shut eye, in between the horrendous thunder storm which caused the roof to leak right onto my seat! On asking the bus driver for assistance he advised me the leaking will stop when the rain stops. Hmmm Helpful!!

We stopped at deserted petrol stations along the way and i made sure i stuck by the bus so he didnt drive off and leave me in the middle of nowhere! We finally arrived in Byron, completely nakered and starving at 7am. We all helped each other on with our HUGE backpack (which we found was way more dignified than struggling with the bag our own) then made our way to the next hostel. Nothing could be worse than Surfside noisy, no air coned, cockroach infested rooms and we were pleasently suprised with the room we had.

The day we arrived in Byron Bay was probably the best day of the year- My birthday!!!

This year i decided i did not want to be 26 as that is way to old therefore i picked a more acceptable age of 23! 'HAPPY 23rd BDAY TO ME!!!!'

Being absolutely nakered from the 13 hour journey, i was not really expecting to celebrate my birthday however the girls had a different idea! After checking in, the girls produced 6 party hats which we all wore while eating our breakfast. Then they gave me a card and a bracelet which was lovely. The suprises werent over there though as we went to the beach to take advantage of the short burst of sunshine and the girls produced a bottle of 'passion pop' and some crisps so we had a little beach picnic. When sun went in (minutes later) we made our way back to hostel to get ready for my birthday nite out!

Full of passion pop we walked the streets of Byron looking for somewhere to dance the night away. On the way down highstreet we were stopped several times by locals and backpackers who wanted to hug me and wish me happy birthday. How sweet!

We were told by one of the hugging public that the best place to party on Tuesdays was Cocomungos! This was nicknamed Blokeomungos as there was a 2.1 ratio of guys to girls. We made our way there and after around an hour we realised who it was called Blockomugos. Yep... it was a gay bar! We still had a great time dancing there and made some friends with som Irish blokes and made by midnight we made our way to Cheeky monkeys which is the popular backpacker bar! I did not think Cheekys was anything special but we did chat to some nice australia men who we could actually have a conversation with and not just get groped!

I did have an excellent 23rd Birthday which i will not forget! So thanks girls for making it special. I found it hard to celebrate things like birthdays when im not surrounded by my family but the girls made sure it was fun which took my mind off missing my family. Still miss them tho!!! :-)

As the weather was sooooo rubbish while we were in Byron we did not managed to do much apart from our attempt at visiting the lighthouse. We were told it took around 30 mins to get there so we started walking around 3pm. By 4pm and a trek through woods and beaches we were still no closer. It began getting dark, very quickly and we decided to stop and have a cheeky vodka while admiring the lighthouse from afar. Within minutes it had become pitch black and we decided to make our way back to hostel. What followed was probably the scariest 30 mins of my life. We had to retrace our steps back and in the dark this was not an easy task. We went into the woods literally powerwalked through as it was so dark you could not see your hand in front of you. Gemma had a wind up torch which she wound up the whoe way back, however this did not help much with lighting our path. After a petrifying 30 mins we reach the main road with street lights and we could all relax a bit. However it then began to thunderstorm and we got absolutely soaked walking back. Arhhh the joys of australian weather!

Overall i was a bit disapointed with Byron Bay. The locals were not very welcoming and it pissed it down throughout the whole time we were there. It may be better to go back when the weather is better and maybe do some surfing as thats one of the reasons Byron is so famous! As for now though were onto our next destination: Surfers Paradise!