So I'm now in Byron Bay which is one of my favourite places so far. Stopping in a hostel called Arts Factory which is ace, originally set up by hippies they've done everything to keep the same vibe with accommodation being old busses, tepees, huts, Wagon's etc etc. More of Byron later.
After leaving Noosa we went onto Brisbane which I had high hopes for being the first city we'd been to since arriving in Oz. Turned out to be one of my least favourite places of my whole trip! I'm probably not being that fair to the place as we didn't see that much of it. Our first night was Chris's last night so we all went out and got completely wasted in down under bar (which was good) but left us feeling horrible the following day and not really doing a great deal. Following that our room turned out to be infested with beg bugs so our second day there we spent all day washing our clothes and back packs, what a pain in the arse! After washing was finished Danny and I went on a brewery tour of Castlemain xxxx which was the best bit of Brisbane for me. Happily the following day we left Brisbane and headed down to Surfers Paradise.
During the end of November/early December all the 17-18yr olds of Australia head for certain places like Surfers Paradise to celebrate finishing school named 'Scoolies week' so when we hit Surfers we unfortunately caught the end of it and our hostel and the whole town was overrun with them. Luckily we did only catch the tail end so after two days they had all pretty much left. Surfers Paradise is a bit like the Benidorm of Australia in the fact that's it's very holiday resort esk and could have been anywhere in the world! In saying that we all had a pretty good time there. I've now officially taken up Surfing and spent a few days on the beach practicing and am now on the look out for my own board. We paid a visit to Sea World which had the most amazing Dolphin show, I was going to go down in the shark cage and feed them but unfortunately it wasn't on the day we were there but thinking about it, it'd be a much better experience to actually do it in the wild. Had a good couple of nights out there, we also went for cocktails in the world tallest residential building which is also home to the worlds fastest lift! I know a story and half that one 77 floors in 42 seconds, wow!
Okay our next destination from Surfers Paradise is where i am now being Byron Bay. This is what I expected most of Australia to be like, nice town, very surf orientated, loads of backpackers, good bars, great beach, brilliant hostel, need I say more. On our first full day here in Byron i went out to do a dive as it had got to be about three weeks since my last dive and I was starting to get withdrawal symptoms...Wasn't expecting a great dive but it turned out to be awesome. Really interesting dive site with loads of nooks and cranny's to explore with weird old looking fish hiding away (I need to do some more fish identification classes as I'm sure weird old fish isn't the correct description) saw three huge turtles and the biggest stingray that was bigger than me gently glided past. Only thing with the dive is that my instructor was a tosser but hey ho you can't have it all. We've done a bush tukka walk with Cockatoo Paul who is also a jewellery maker, one man band, quiz host, restaurant owner, literally you name it! Yesterday we did a trip to the wired old town of Nimbin which was quality but like I say weird. So many people selling drugs there and apparently the old women have the best stock of cookies but I wouldn't know as I'm a very good boy...... This morning I've been refining my juggling skills and have now learnt how to throw batons. Jo and Dan have just arrived not seen them since Ko Lanta so a few beers are needed for that and then some more surfing tomorrow.
From here we plan to go Hunter Valley for some Cheese and Wine tasting and then Sydney ready for Xmas!!!
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