Hello!

Australia Day, 26th Jan, should have been a brilliant day! For most Aussies it's bigger than New Year! Their very own public holiday when it's neccessary to be over the top patriotic! The morning was great - we headed down to The Rocks where various stages were set up and people were performing around every corner. It really reminded me of fete de la musique in Angouleme, everyone relishing in the atmosphere and celebrating together. At around lunch time we headed over to Circular Quay to watch a tall boat race finish under the Harbour Bridge. Perhaps we were expecting too much, but a race of three boats was a little underwhelming! Shortly after we decided to hit the bars and were accosted on the way by an interesting fellow with a video camera! If you go to www.ozmygod.com and click on the Australia Day link I believe there is a rather excellent piece of acting waiting to be viewed! Sadly whilst we were sat in the bar the heavens opened and didn't really stop for the rest of the day! We made our way bar by bar back to Darling Harbour - bearing in mind that was on the other side of Sydney, this was some feat - and found a spot ready to watch the fireworks. It poured down all evening but the diaplay was nevertheless incredible! As soon as they were over we joined the stampeede to the nearest bar and danced the night away to try and dry ourselves off!

Wednesday 28th we made our way to Byron Bay - I had heard great things about this little place and was certainly not disappointed! The Bay itself is truly gorgeous and even though the rain had followed us from Sydney we still managed an afternoon on the beach. It was probably no bad thing that it was only an afternoon as Eve and I were both pretty frazzled by the evening!

Our accommodation in Byron Bay was um well different! We stayed at the Arts Factory which is just behind the main street. On the web-site it looked to be really hippy and cool and to be fair that it was. I even had a wonderous massage in a tipi! However our luxurious private room turned out to be not much short of a tent! The whole place is next to a swamp and our tent was on a raised platform almost suspended over it! Needless to say there is a lot of wildlife in those areas - flying cockroach things, spiders the size of your hand, enormous lizards, lime green frogs, odd looking bush turkeys who found it enjoyable to fly into the side of our tent in the early hours - and that was just the things we actually saw!!! The pathway to our tent was fairly poorly lit and so walking aroud at night was just scary! How pathetic we sound! Now we can laugh but at the time ew, I have goosebumps just thinking about it!

As a result we spent a fair bit of time in the town! We walked up to the lighthouse which looks over the most easterly point of Australia. Stood at the top we spotted dolphins swimming in the crystal blue waters - it was so beautiful. Also definitely worth a visit is Cheeky Monkeys bar/nightclub. Horrendously cheesy and a notorious meat market but great fun nevertheless! The tables became the dancefloors and so there was no option but to dance on the tables! Crazy times! Off to brisbane tomorrow - back to a dorm, I really didn't think I'd miss it!

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