Ok ok so i have been rrrrrubbish at doing these so far... all for good reason, and will updte you now!!so this is a 'fake' blog as i have now left byron, but hey ho...

so the surf trip... was coool! funniest thing seeing our 'luxury' coach pull up at the station in sydney, sure it wouldnt have been road legal in the uk, wont go into details to save mum's nerves lol at least the driver was a beautifully tanned, toned, tall, blonde guy called harley... :) and there were only two girls in our group! headed off on our first surf lesson - on land was good, in the water was another matter, just got taken out by every wave and the rips...not a chance for little old me who hasnt done any exercise for a good long while! driving to the surf camp we passed some gorgeous scenery, hopefully caught some on camera - beautiful lakes and mountains. arrived at surf camp - in the middle of absolute nowhere, but pretty good cabin accomm anyway. then someone came in and said there was a giant spider in their room. oh dear. chose to ignore the comments and was greatful i couldnt find any anywhere else. then had a shower in showers that gave you an electric shock when you tried to turn them off lol was a joke, surely pretty dangerous! that evening there was a big party at the camp, lots of 'sangria', beer and games of 'flip cup' that progressivly got more risk-a-y and competitive lol then onto the dancing on the tables - you get the idea lol

in the morning we went to another gorgeous beach that as we drove up to we saw dolphins swimming close to shore - as you can imagine i was in heaven! sadly they had left by the time we had had an on beach lesson. waves were perfect, stood up most times and was getting lots of encouraging comments. that was a great day, absolutely loved it and had confidence that i could do this surfing!then we went onto our accom for the night - to my horror in an even more remote national park resort called wayway lodge - clueless to my ridiculous fear the instructors had been talking about the spiders there all day, we arrived at my worst nightmare. two tequila shots and half a bottle of wine to calm my nerves later, i managed to get to semi terrified sleep and left without seeing any :) happy jo.

thursdays surf was a write off. absolutely crushed by waves - by this time i had an almighty bruise on my left leg from being beaten up by both my board, the waves, and other people crashing into me. stayed in a pub/hotel that night - amazing amazing shower, clean white white sheets and beautifully soft towels, slept the best i had in a very very very long time. i was a very happy, clean bunny! friday's surf was a little better - at least i got to stand up a few more times, and can take what i learnt and practise it when i find some good waves that i can cope with!

i loved byron - the beach is beautiful, and the town is lovely, nice but expensive shops, no high rise buildings, and a couple of decent places to go out at night once you've gotten bored of drinking goon in the hostel and then going to watch and listen to all of the buskers lining the streets - such a great relaxed atmosphere!

sadly my camera got ruined however, long story. then that same night i found out mat and vernon had been broken into and had passports, wallets etc stolen from their hostel in brissy, so wouldnt be able to get down to me for a while. also still hadnt got my visa card. so not such a happy jo. then.... the boys managed to get things sorted pretty quickly and came down tuesday morning - spent 3 happy days chilled out on the beach, by the pool and around the town. happy happy jo!