hi everybody

we are now in byron bay, about 5 days away from arriving in sydney for christmas and sTILL having too much fun. we left noosa on saturday morning to go to australia zoo and then headed to brisbane that evening, where we stayed in the nICEst hostel so far with modern ensuite shower and bathroom. here's the update for the past few days:

saturday: we met up with our friend niels from holland who we had met at airlie beach, fraser island, noosa and now brisbane and went for the most humuNGOUS chinese meal in china town that evening. i was pretty tired after pushing charlotte around in a wheelchair all day at the zoo because she had painful knees and hips (something to do with when she had glandula fever at the beginning of the year) but had the tastiest sizzling steak and vegetables probably ever! i sent charlotte to bed early that night and headed for the bar. we were staying in a dorm with 2 chinese girls who spoke very broken english but were very funny. one of them looked like she was in pain from the shock when we told her we were twins!!

sunday: we met up with niels again and walked around the little market stalls along the river. didn't do much except from admiring how beautiful brisbane really is and taking in some sunshine. we met up with some new friends for a drink that evening, and when the hostel bar closed early (sundays!) the only place we could find where guys could wear flip flops was a little cafe, so at 2am we drank Tea and hot chocolate!

monday: we got up quite early this morning to explore more of the city and enjoy the sunshine, but we soon realised the sky was all cloudy. we decided to book ahead to sydney as everybody seems to have the same plans and are all heading down the east coast for christmas in sydney too. by the time we had stood in the queue and sorted everything out, it was already mid-afternoon!! we walked back down to the river and took the city-cat down the river and almost all the way back again to see some more of brisbane. its funny because you just buy a travelcard like in london, but it covers all your ferry journeys and all other public transport aND for less than half the price! we ended up hitting queen street mall where aLL the good shops are (oops, sorry bank accounnt!). we met up with the guys again and went on a wander to find a nice restaurant for supper. we ended up settling for a place called bow-thai for a delicious thai meal. charlotte's friend siobhan flew in that night and obviously went straight to bed from the severe jet-lag!! we stayed up for more drinks and had a brilliant night.

tuesday: we had to check out of our room this morning and move to a new one (as we hadn't booked ahead enough to keep the same room) and headed straight for the river again after breakfast. we took the ferry to the lagoon which is like a fake beach and pool and sunbathed there for the afternoon. after all that relaxing (followed by window shopping) we had to have a nap and poor siobhan was exhausted!

weds: this morning we left brisbane to head to our next stop, coolangatta, just down the coast on the border of queensland and new south wales. it was only an hour's drive so was pretty close but we were hoping to see some beaches and sunshine! in the afternoon after checking into probably our worst hostel yet, we headed for the beach and got nice and rained on until the sun came out about 30mins later. siobhan decided to share her shower cubicle with the biggest cockroach we have seen so far (not so enjoyable). its funny that everyone seems to think its fine and so normal but they are the most disgusting bugs i have seen!!

thurs: to get away from the hostel, we took a bus into the town and went to a beautiful beach where we spent most of our day. the weather was absolutely amazing - one of the best days so far for sunshine so we topped up our non-existent tans nicely! we had a wander through the little town which is full of little shops which was very lovely. it was a 10min bus ride back to the hostel but we decided to wander back along the beach which ended up taking us much longer than we expected!! took a shower to wash off the sand from the sandstorm (not with cockroaches this time thank god) and then had a quiet evening in the tv room.

friday: we left coolangatta this morning and headed to byron bay. the bus was late, and then the pick up to the hostel was late and then we stood in a queue for ages to check in - the whole day just seemed to be wasting away. later we wandered through the high street and realised the day wasn't such a drag after all, because byron bay is really a very nice town. very seasidey with lots of surf shops and cafes, but so full of life. we went to make our supper in preparation for a night out, and realised a fair bit of lighting flashing through the sky. this soon after turned into possible tHE hugest storm i have ever ever seen! the rain thundered down for hours and the lightning flashed every second!!!! so... we decided to get a bottle of wine and some chocolate (to calm the nerves of course) and stay in! we moved from the eating balcony area which was soon drenched in water to the balcony outside our room which faced a different direction which was protected and watched the storm.

sat: we got up early to get ready for our first surfing lesson today. we met the team and headed out to 'the pass' which is renound for having excellent waves just past the rocks into the bay. so we stood there a while looking a bit silly as we practised getting onto our feet with our boards on the sand............... qUITE a bit easier than doing it on unsteady water! charlotte did sO well on her 1st attempt and rode the wave almost all the way to the shore. i was pretty nervous to follow in her footsteps but managed to do exactly the same but ended up having to walk a mile through the waves to get back to the spot where we were catching the waves from! basically the instructor just aimed our board in the direction we needed to go and gave us a push and a quick 'U.P.' when we needed to stand up to catch it at the right time. we had sOOOooo much fun. at one point they pushed charlie and i at the same time but after a couple of seconds, i realised by board was heading for charlotte's and hers was going straight - this was a problem! the only thing i could reach to push away from her so we didn't have some sort of collision was her bum!! somehow it balanced me loads and so kept my hand right there as we rode to the shore, both in histerics but with some funny pics to show!!

... and its sunday now and im writing after spending our 2nd day as real surfers. we did pretty well today too and even learned how to catch our own waves without needing to be pushed and tried to perfect the standing up thing (much harder than it looks, trust!!) fell off quite a few times, but it just comes with practise i guess, and we really had so much fun. tomorrow we have changed our coach time til the evening so that we can squeeze in what is supposed to be one of the top 10 dives in australia at julian rocks. we haven't dived since the whitsundays so can't wait to get in that boat and head for the ocean! apparently you can sea a huge variety of different fish - many that we havent yet seen as the warm and cool seas meet, so you get fish from the north and from the south aND turtles, sharks & dolphins!!

our next stop will be ballina, although we will be taking a day trip back up to lennox head to visit this beautiful tea-tree lake we have heard about.

keep in touch.

p.s. we now have an appartment in sydney (suburb of mosman incase you want to check it out) for christmas until february which is sO brilliant and just what we wanted! (thanks janne, john & grandma) xxx