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Published: November 14th 2007
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The Girls
Before our sufing lesson at Surf Camp Its Wednesday and I'm passing time untill I get the bus this afternoon up to Surfers Paradise. Ok, quick run down, arrived last thursday, spent two nights in Sydney, pouring with rain, and our backpackers wasn't very nice so we booked ourselves on the Oz Experince bus $495 (which is about 250 pounds) for the complete journey up the east coast, we can get on and off the bus where ever we want so its very flexible. I was a bit worried about getting the Oz Experience because ive heard its just a bunch of 18yr olds all wanting to get pissed up all the time and shag each other but so far, its really good!
We got on the bus Saturday morning, had an all day drive to Surf Camp, so gave us plenty of time to chat to everyone on the bus, turns out weve met a wicked bunch of people. (tell you about them in a bit)
Once at surf camp, we got dinner, yep I took the veggie option! (For those who don't know, i'm attempting to be a veggie now i'm travelling) and had a few drinks, me and mark have really suffered this week
After our surfing lesson
Surf camp, how fit do I look! though, we just want to sleep all the time, i think we've got jet lag so we didn't stay up too late.
Sunday.......breakfast at 6.30am (I didn't have any bacon people.....just fruit and fried egg, bean and toast), very flattering wetsuits adonned at 7am. 2 hour surfing lesson.....whoop whoop. I was bang up for it and secretly thought, yeah I'm gonna rock!........I was RUBBISH!! Mark kept shooting by me standing up and everything, I'm too competitive! Instead of just laughing about it i was getting more and more annoyed with myself, haha, funny to look back on.
I did really enjoy it though, Mark is going to be a pro I think, I swallowed god knows how much water and almost drowned once!! Not bad for my first surfing lesson, i'm a pro at surfing on my knees if that counts!!!!
After showers we hopped back on the bus for the afternoon drive to Byron Bay, still miserable weather, raining and drizzle.
We had a choice of staying in a hostel in town or at another place called the Arts Factory, 10mins walk from town. Nearly everyone chose to stay in town but Marks work mate had told him
The Gang
Nimbin museum
Laura,Tom,Lianne,Bobbie,Alisa,Mark Steve
he must stay there, i read about it in my book and it sounded cool, you can sleep in 'Tipies' (how do you spell that) or in old buses done out into dorms, etc.
Once we arrived, Mark and I booked ourselves into an Island Retreat, which is a canvas hut write on the bank of a lake. (As you can see from the photos) We had our own room....yay!! It was very small but a doublt bed, instead of a squeaky bunk. We organised to meet the others in town for a drink at 9pm, so we thought we'd just have a lay down, at about 5pm, ended up sleeping through to the morning!! See what I mean! It sounded like a monsoon all night, i thought the lake was going to rise up to the hut, it was pouring down!!
We booked oursleves on Jims Alternative Tours, not knowing fully what we were letting ourselves in for, he came and picked us up just after 10am, the rest of the gang were already on the bus. The tour was to a place called Nimbin, the most hippy place ever, basically most backpackers go there to buy cannabis/weed/pot
Our hut
Art Factory, Byron Bay etc And to much on pot cookies and cakes. The police turn a blind eye to it all going on in Nimbin, who knows why, probably because it brings in the tourists!!! There must be a political reason, the coppers are probably the ones growing the weed! So it was a tour to get stoned, putting it bluntly.
To cut a long story short (i'm trying to be quick) it was a wierd and wonderful day out, we were told to only have 1 cookie but it takes about an hour to effect you, but ofcourse you get the idiots who think they can handle more, me and Mark had a fit of giggles on the way home watching this one lad getting closer and closer to falling off his chair, it was hilarious, then Lianne didn't know why she couldn't stop eating the Macadamian nuts! Jim played the wierdest music, every song was linked to either a story he told or what we were looking at outside the windows. Mental, i can't begin to explain the experince!
We just bought a few drinks and sat and talked for hours back at the other guys hostel, we all thought we
Beauts!
Bobby, Lianne and me sunbathing on Byron bay beach. were normal but looking back on it, we were all stoned, you know one of those nights where you just can't stop laughing!
Tuesday- I woke desperate for the toilet at 7am, unzipped the door and got hit by a huge ray of sunshine.......YAY..........the sun has arrived! I couldn't possibly go back to bed, so i sat on our little veranda and wrote my diary, i was accompanied by our little firned which i'm calling a dragon lizzard thing!! haha, i don't know what hes called. See in the photo.
As it was such a beaut of a day we headed for the beach, somehow, managing to get lost trying to find which way the beach was (morons) we finally got there, it was gorgeous, I felt i was walking onto the set of Home and Away. Once we settled down and started to apply suncream (the shops only sold factor 30, the sun is mental strong out here) a little tractor with a siren started driving down the beach, a man was waving at everyone to get out the water...........it was only a bloody shark alarm!!! Wish put the willies up us all and didn't want to go
Mark giving some loving
Mr Dragon Lizzard Thing and Mark getting close and personal, he ran at mark after this, hehe. in the sea at all after that, but it got too hot so i went just above waist high, very paranoid! Mark being mark, forgot to put suncream on his feet and now has the most burnt, blistered feet ever. I feel so sorry for him, they look so painful.
We tried to stay up another night but by 11.30pm we just couldn't do it, so left the gang to it in Cheeky Monkeys and headed home, i'm not feeling the 'getting off my tits everynight' vibe yet, im in chilling mode.
Yet again we woke to glorious sunshine in our little hut this morning, what a little suntrap for first thing in the morning,packed our stuff up and checked out, then we got the free bus to town, went to the gangs hostel to have a bowl of cornflakes.
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