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Byron Bay
We all arrived in Byron Bay on Sunday the 12th of February at about 8:20pm, later than we should have done, but the reception of the hostel, the holiday village was sill open so it was all good, we booked into apartment dorms, and I shared with 3 other girls from the bus, susie, stef and laura, the dorms had 2 rooms, and there were 2 guys sitting watching tv when we walked in, but didn't really get a chance to say much to them as we got ready in a whirlwind of activity as we were hungry and the bar stopped serving food at 9pm, and if you'll believe it which you jolly well should, I was ready first and got to watch the others hurridly trying to put their make up on and do their hair and such, I quite enjoy the low maintenance of being a traveller, I gave my hair a brush, added some eyeliner powder and lipstick/balm, changed my top and was all good to go, all in about 5 minutes at my leisure, then we found the other girls from the bus and headed towards the bar and on the way I found $2, and it turned out we got a special deal where my pasta turned out to be $2 so I got a free meal and we had free drinks and life was good, had a good night, we tried to find an open bottle shop to buy some goon and then go back to the bar as drinks were expensive there, but ended up phil had a big bottle of whiskey which he shared round and we promised to buy his share of goon when we bought the liquor the next day, and then utter confusion happened, so me and phil stayed drinking in our apartment then went out to try and find the others at the bar as that's where we thought they'd gone, we only found one of the girls, but we had a good night anyway and managed to find out way back to our apartments,
Next morning we all decided to have dippy eggs and toast for breakfast, it was pretty tasty, after we rented our crockery and cutlery from reception at a dollar apiece, then all went exploring round Byron, and ended up at the beach, it was gorgeous just like a tropical paradise with the sun and the sea and the sand, and we were on the part where the dogs were allowed so got to watch loads of them playing fetch or playing which was nice as I missed seeing animals as I hadn't really seen any dogs or cats since o got to aus, and we went in the sea and bobbed about in the waves it was B-E-A-utiful , then dried off in the shade/sun and decided to get food, at this point split up with the girls and phil and me went off as the girls wanted to stop in every shop and one wanted to do this and the other that, so we went and had a milkshake, and another little explore and look round some of the shops and if only I had the space in my bag and the money I should have bought a thousand unneeded things, you know me and hippy shops=] then we found a park and sat on the swings for a bit, then decided to walk back to the hostel, and see what the others were up to, and they had all been to travel agents to sort out their plans and such as most of them were only here for about 3 months or so, then I wanted to see if I could walk to the lighthouse as the views from there are meant to be spectacular, phil also wanted to see the lighthouse so, we asked if anyone else wanted to go, but they were all too busy planning, so we left and decided to walk along the beach towards the lighthouse, but it turns out that the lighthouse was much further than we thought (an entire bus ride or 2 away!) and we ended up following the beach and after walking for quite a while the sea looked pretty inviting so we decided to go for a swim, well I decided to go for a swim, phil decided to throw me in instead, so after that loverly refreshing seawater cocktail courtesy of phil, we got out and continued along the beach, and up some weather worn wooden steps to a sort of look out point which was pretty beautiful, with the rocks and seafoam glistening in the captured sunrays underneath us, the waves and clear blue sky in front, the beach to either side and to the north west the curve of the coast as far as the eye could see covered in vegetation, and behind us so many plants and trees it reminded me of a national park, but a prehistoric type one, due to size and foliage of trees!
After admiring the view for a bit we decided to set off for the lighthouse again as we could see it away up in the distance, so climbed down the steps and up a path into a mini camp and BBQ site, where they had an outdoor shower, where I gratefully rinsed off most of the saltwater in my head and from my face, then we walked up a hill and up so many sets of stairs they had stone benches at every 2 set intervals, butt he view was stil amazing as it was on the cliff edge pretty much and you could see the rocks and tiny stretches of sand as the tide was out, then we walked down the other side of the steps and through another little camp+BBQ site, and on the beach, and decided to explore all the rocks and mini beaches they encompassed, and eventually we couldn't go much further as the rocks were piled too high and jagged to climb over but had managed to find a beautiful secluded part that felt like our on private beach with a huge sun warmed rock to lounge on and climb about, so I explored all of that (I have photos of me standing at the highest flat part of it when I upload them) and then I managed to escape being thrown in the sea again, as it would be too cold as the sun was starting to stain the sky with pink streaks, and instead I got taught how to skim a stone, successfully, after a few laughable attempts, I finally skimmed my first ever pebble and in the sea no less, I was so chuffed I did a little victory dance, much to phil's amusement haha,
We'd given up on the lighthouse idea as we'd by now guessed how far away it was and so headed back, and bough some food from good ole Woolworth for dinner (mine was loverly and cheap a baby sized can of baked beans for 80 cents+some pepsi, phil's was pasta and meat sauce) then went back to apartment kitchen and all the girls from ozex were there having dinner, and getting ready for going out, so we cooked our dinner, then I got ready and we all started playing drinking games, which were pretty amusing as we had no cards so had to rely on other games, but it was pretty fun, and I was happy as I had no goon but whiskey+pepsi to drink, which was a blissful change, and I got one of the girls to French plait my hair as I couldn't be bothered to do anything else to it, so watching or seeing out the corner of my eye one of the girls trying to a little less than sober trying to plait my hair was pretty funny, but they turned out okay which was good,
then a few people wanted to go out to a bar or club at this point and the rest sxtill thought it was too early, so a few went out and the rest of us stayed to finnishe our drinks and such, then we headed out to find them, and tried to loudly persuade a bike cab guy to give us all a free ride, even though there were 5 of us and he told us that if he's had no customers int he next 10 minutes we could, so we laughed and wandered off towards the beach and the beach hotel bar and arrived there got our stamp to go and met phil and laura out on the bar balcony, and realised as it was after midnight it was offically phil's birthday and decided to sing happy birthday to him at the top of our lungs and also probably not quite in tune either buit he appreciated it, then we all decided to go and get a drink but the bar had just closed, so we all headed back to the appartmet, where we all had some more drinks and a chat and people drifed off till there was only a few of us left, and we decided that a couple of drinks on the beach would be a good idea, but the other 2 went to bed, so we set off back on the route to the beach (one we knew quite well, actually everyone else did i still lack any sense of direction) and it was a loverly night, but after an hour or 2 it got a bit cold with the sea breeze and what not, so we ambled back to our hostel appartments and then i climbed up onto my top bunk, after de-sanding, that stuff gets everywhere! and fell asleep, and woke up still covered in sand haha,
the next day had to be up and ready for 8:45am for phil's birthday trip to nimbin, and we were, well i was ready just faffing about i guess as i'd woken up so early without the need for my alarm and had my shower, so was sort of ready but still wasn't quite ready to go, any females reading this will know what i mean, but anyway we were outside the front of the hostel at the right time and the bus picked us up, but we were both pretty sleepy at this point as it was warm and nothing to do with virtually no sleep the night before and alcohol consumption, actually i definatly wasn't hungover i was just a bit sleepy, so anyway the bus picked up the other people, as we'd been the first ones on and were hoping for a few more people as it felt a bit odd to be on a bus that empty, and the bus by the way must had one of the oldest or least manintained engines i've ever been seen, as it couldn't go past 2nd or sometimes 1st gear up hills and thus we mainly did about 30-40 miles per hour or 40km i guess, but on the bright side, literally, it was pretty rainbow colours, i did get a photo which when i get a chance to upload my million and one photos you can see=]
we stopped off at a little pub/bar/restauranty thing for a little break, and a little jack russel dog was there waiting and ran about and eventually just jumped up on the bus and then when we got moving again we realised we'd taken it with us, but found out that it was actaully the bus driver's dog, and it came and sat by our feet on the bus and enjoyed being petted my phil+,me, then we got to nimbin and had a little explore, as it was surposed to be a hippy town and it was full of hippy people who like to yell out 'wanna cookie$' and such at you as you walked past, but the shops were all pretty cool though basically sold the same stuff at slightly different prices and were full of memobrillia about their 'ganja faerie' parade, so i bought a few bits and pieces from the shops, stuff like bracelets and a postcard, and then we went for a walk to see what else there was apart from the main strip, and found a dead end and then a gvt building site and a childrens play area complete with slide, but the clouds that had looked a little threatening all day sudenly started to pelt us with water and then we managed to quickly get back into town and into a shop to buy a drink when the heavens suddenly opened and rain drops were dancing on the road and car roofs and anyone's head who hadn't managed to make it to shelter in time, so we stayed under the awnings until our bus arrived and we pelted it accross the road as fast as we could to get on the bus, but still managed to get pretty soggy,
and we drove to our BBQ site which was thankfully under cover too, and i was so cold that i took my towel out and used it as a shawl as most of the other girls were doing, phil on the otherhand seemed fine just a little tired, not really a fun birthday to get rained on and have no energy for poor guy, but he didn't seem to mind, he was just hungry! so we had our BBQ i got veggie stuff, but wasn't all that hungry anyways and then on the bus to take us to the waterfall that we could go swimming in, but we walked into the little by now muddy forest path and were told that the waterfall was too dangerous to swim in today due to all the rain, and the fact that it was moving fast enough to sweep people away and the amount of mud in the water had turned it to chocolate milk shake colour haha, so we got back on the bus and drove back to bryron bay, and it was sunnier waether by then and so phil+me had woken up a bit,
so at the apartment i went to go see if i had any new roomies as the other girls had checked out to another hostel, a nomads one that morning as they thought that this one was in a terriable state, (it wasn't great but could have been a hell of a lot worse!) and i'd already booked another night anyway so i didn't really mind, then as we were leaving the next morning, ellie, yvonne,phil and me, to go to surfers paradise, phil and i dropped off our stuff and then went to Peterpan's travel agency where we got free internet, and then phil went to go find a phone to book his ozex as he didn't have his internet username+password from them, i booked mine but it wouldn't let me change where they were picking me up from so ended up ringing them also, then we tried to book a hostel there but weren't sure and to see about deals for tickets to the theme parks in surfers, but again couldn't find anything, and bumped into 2 of the girls who told us that peterpans couldn't help us with that we could book the tickets online using this website, so we left it at that and decided to go back and get ready to go out for dinner, then naturally phil being ready before me, came over and chilled out while watching me pack my bag for tomorrow and then we were both ready and went to find the other girls in their new hostel, and after a quick chat with them, they'd all had a BBQ together, i met some other friends of mine from the ozex surf camp and chatted with them for a while then as no one else felt like going out, phil and i left them to it and went and got take away pizza and i bought him a bottle of wine as a birthday present, and we went back to the appartment and had a quiet night in, after both wondering why people would go travelling to just sit in their hostel living rooms and watch raubbish tv, which is exactly what we did, but it had been a long day!
the next morning got up and ready and checked out of the hostel and straight onto the ozex bus, where the girls ellie and yvonne were already on and then phil appeared and everybody was set so off we went and arrived in Surfer's Paradise at about 11am-ish QLD time, which is an hour behind NSW.
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