Byron Bay

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Arrived in Byron Bay on Sunday. We got to our hostel Holiday Village quite late and just wanted to go straight to sleep. We arrived with a girl called Jodie who had also been at Spot X and travelled on the same bus as us. In our room was an American guy who seemed really funny at first but was having drinks with two girls (who weren't actually staying in our room) in our room. They stayed for ages pre-drinking before they would go out, and he clearly loved to be the centre of attention entertaining everyone. But my amusement soon wore off as he would not shut up and they contemplated staying in even though they could see the rest of us were trying to sleep! Thankfully they all eventually went out and he didn't even come back to our room till morning where he yapped on again before checking out!

On Monday we had a look around the town there are lots of funky little shops here, its a really nice little beach side town. We went on a bar crawl tonight that we had booked through the Spot X people. It was only $10 for 4 free drinks, entry into 3 bars and transport around as well as some bar nibbles. The bar crawl started at the Nomads hostel and at first when we arrived we were really overwhelmed by everyone. They all seemed to know eachother from some big tour group and we didn't really know anyway. Everyone else also seemed already pretty wasted. They played a game before going out where five guys place a tube with a balloon on one end between their legs and five girls had to blow up the balloons on their knees. The first one to burst the balloon won. When then got on a bus to go to the first bar and it was absolutely freaking mental with blasting music and people dancing in the ailse as the bus was over-full. The first bar was pretty cool and we had free champange....that was really gross. At the second bar the reps got everyone up and dancing and we got into the party spirit a lot more. They also played a sex positions game with 'couples' where the rep was shouting out positions that they had to get into. Slowest couples were eliminated and when it got down to the last 3 they had to compete for how many positions they could do in 30 seconds! It was hilarious to watch! By the final bar after several purchased and free drinks we were having a really great time!! After a while we left the bar crawl and headed to the main bar in Byron Cheeky Monkeys to meet up with the guys and girls from Spot X. We got there pretty late and some had already left and those who were still there didn't hang around for much longer but it was good to see them again and we arranged something for the next night.

On tuesday we walked to the beach and then me and one of the guys Ben walked up to the lighthouse. The Cape Byron lighthouse is the furthest easterly point in Australia. The walk up to it was pretty messy, through the woods so we decided to come back along the road. At the lighthouse you get a great veiw of Byron Bay, and to the east you can see nothing but miles and miles of open ocean. We went for food at Cheeky Monkeys tonight with Charlotte and Ben and I had free pasta from a voucher I had :D They played some cool bar games here but the only free drink they gave away was beer so since I don't like beer at all I didn't really get involved as theres not much point winning a drink you don't like! 😞 But they were still pretty entertaining to watch.

We had a day trip to Nimbin on wednesday. Nimbin is a hippie town about an hour away from Byron Bay, known for its drugs! It was like being in another world. All the locals are stoned and several people tried to sell us weed and cookies when we were just walking down the street. The shops were quite cool but again drug-orientated selling bongs and crack pipes ect and lots of hippie stoner type stuff. After the town we stopped at a waterfall it had been raining so the walk into the waterfall was really muddy and slippery. A few brave ones in the group including myself climbed up the top of the rocks at the side of the waterfall and then jumped in. One guy before me said the water was lovely and warm so I had quite the shock when I jumped in and it was actually pretty damn cold!!! We had a BBQ next and I had lots of veggie burgers and cider and then we headed back to Byron. Passed on going out tonight as the water gave me a really bad earache and drinking cider all day had left me really sleepy.

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