11th March

BYRON! We slobbed in the morning, Ashliegh was 'sick' again hehe I love it. Abigayle& Ricky came back to Cleveland so we could all road trip down to Byron together, some other friends came too and we all met up and set off on the road. Stopped off at a liquor store on the way of course to get our supplies for the journey, Meg drove whilst the rest of us ladies became intoxicated and all of the lads did in their car. I had to sneak into the hostel as it was only booked for 4, woops. After more pre-drinks at a rather snazzy hostel Nomads in Byron Bay we headed out. Tried and tested the jam jars at CocoMango's and partied at Cheeky Monkeys 'til the wee hours. Had my spy skills tested to the max getting back into the hostel, I had to pretend I was a boy named Ricky, ha! It worked mind, woohoo, maybe I should apply to MI5.

12th March

Had to be out by 10am so no hung-over lie in for us, we treated ourselves to a cooked breakfast, bit pricey but was delicious. Then all 9 of us met up again and we spent the morning on the beach J I do love Australian beaches I must confess. We drove to Surfers Paradise and nosied around, found a place for all us to stay the night at Nobby Beach campsite cabins. Was pretty cool! The lads treated us ladies to a good ol' Aussie fashioned BBQ for dinner. We stayed in and relaxed in the evening, playing games (of course involving lots of alcohol), things might have got a tinsy bit heated and tense with a few disagreements between some people so 4 of us ran away from the bad vibes to the good vibes on the beach. Meg was naughty and went swimming in the sea in the dark!!! I was too much of a wimp and stood on the beach as lifeguard watching over my Meggy instead.

13th March

I woke up with a bed full of sand after our late night trip to the beach, was like a a full body exfoliator. Popped to Mccy D's for a pancake breakfast, we deliberated about what to do for ageeeeeeeesssss…eventually we left the boys and the 5 of us spent the morning on the beach catching up on sleep. The rain then set in and we went to the shops, bought dinner and drove back to Ash's and cooked and watched lots of films J

14th March

Me and Meg did absolutely sweet F.A. all day long today. Had a major lie in, watched trillions of films, picked Ash up from work, went to the film store, hired 7 more films and carried on doing sweet F.A. until we went to bed. I love lazy days!

15th March

We abandoned Ashliegh today L and headed down to Nimbim. Saying goodbye to Abigayle and Ricky and saying hello to Darren and Andy for the next few days. After my epic driving skills, 3 snakes dead on the road we arrived in Nimbim. It such a surreal place, imagaine the most hippiest town you can and times it by a zillion and you have got yourself Nimbim. Went to the "museum" which was basically 4 rooms full of paper mache and Volkswagen campers half destroyed which people obviously did when they were super high!! Such a strange place, even suit ties randomly hanging off the ceiling with painted skulls on them. Bring-A-Bong & Happy Hippie Herbs shops lined the streets, we didn't stay too long. Drove out of town a bit and found a place to camp for the evening, a nice little spot next to a waterfall. I may have had to pretend the van was a 4wd a one point to get it up a grass hill, haha that was something in itself poor little Neil. Me and Darren were on fire duty whilst Meg and Andy were on cooking duty. First camp fire in Aussie was a success, put all of our Raymear and Scout skills to the test, ran out of wood after a few hours though. The dinner was good though, proper steak and hot dogs, yum! Learnt lots of new card games too J

16th March

Phwoar, sweaty Betty's today we were. After breakfast we drove to Murwillabah and stocked up on food and then onto Mount Warning for our 9km walk. 9km not that hard right? Not that hard my arse, pure up hill for 4.5km with a vertical rock climb with a chain up to the summit, wow! Me and Meg would have turned around very early on if it wasn't for Darren and Andy charging ahead with the food and water in the rucksack and us being very thirsty. So we walked and we sweated and we walked and we sweated and we walked and we sweated and we walked some more…. I really need to get fit, I was struggling very hard but then I took over role as the pacemaker and I was on fire! The walk was through a rainforest until you got to the top 400m, literally heaving ourselves up by a chain and we finally arrived at the summit and I could have myself a well deserved biscuits. As soon as we got to the top we had to leave to go back down again before it got dark. The climb back down was so much easier and quicker thank god, singing songs all the way down J I taught them all "Oh you never go to heaven…" true scouting ways. We arrived back at the car park and attempted to wash all of the sweat of us in the river however 2 HUGE yellow and black striped spiders made us all jump out like little girls, they were massive. We spent the night at Mount Warning Campsite and made another campfire and had the luxury of a cold shower with bugs everywhere. I feel asleep pretty much straight away while the others watched Cool Runnings again.

17th March

Woke up to 3 cheeky brush turkeys this morning rummaging around in all of our left our food, me and Meg pretended to be lions and scared them off with our roars!! We had trouble starting the van again, the stupid batteries, but I was a genius mechanic and found some jump leads and jump started the car all by ourselves with no help from any boys just me and meg J Once we were fed we went to Burliegh Heads and hired 2 surfboards between the 4 of us. We played in the oceans for hours and hours making use of our new surf skills. Meg was well into the standing up malarkey but I much preferred just tandem floating and sleeping J We went for some grub and then headed back to Ash's after trouble starting the van yet again. We were welcomed home by a delicious made my our Ash and had a lazy night in watching lots of films together.

18th March

Very very very very very productive day today indeed, started off by swapping our Whoosh van with a Starchild van, now known as Neil Numero Duo/ Neil the Second. Had a few issues with compensation so Ashliegh kindly wrote them a very snooty letter, be interesting to see what they say back. We went for a posh desert lunch and popped to some shops, we bought some right bargain clothes, $2.50 for a maxi dress oh yeah baby! And I also bought myself a new phone, kind of an essential to keep in contact with the parents and mine was completely broken! It is so simple and easy I love it J no fancy I phone for me, oh no. We also went to the docs and got loads of malaria tablets for China, much cheaper than expected so even happier for that as well.

19th March

Very very very super lazy people today. We were meant to go to Wet 'n' wild, we woke up on time but it was chucking it down so we decided to stay in bed. All 3 of us got into Ash's bed and snuggled and fell back asleep J Even more laziness all day long, film after film after home made, delicious, puff pastry pizza after film and more films. Us three certainly make a good lazy team, it was chucking it down all day so we had a pretty good excuse.

20th March

Early morning waking up at 5am, felt like I was back at work again. Got the ferry over to North Stradbroke Island aka Straddie for short and spent the whole day there, was fabulous. Even though it was raining all day long we had lots of fun. We went for our 2nd brekky of the day and hid from the rain, then went to the Brown Lakes and went for a paddle. Its brilliant Ashleigh's daddy Carlos is our a cameraman all day long so we have got some wonderful photos J Went to some lookout points and saw a sea turtle in the waves, hid from the rain some more and had hot chocolates and then decided to face the rain and had a little crazy waterfight in the ocean fully clothed!! Bahaha that was funny, we all got drenched and Meg pushed me and Ash in so we both got REALLY drenched. After we worked up an appetite we went out for lunch to a semi-posh restaurant - bearing in mind that I had no clothes as mine had got soaked I had to wear Ash's WET t shirt as a dress…. Hmm got some funny looks in that. Was an absolutely delicious lunch though and a massive burger. Got the ferry in the afternoon and it was still raining, relaxed and watched even more films this evening too J I might become a film critic at this rate!