Blogs from Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania - page 74

An odd thing happened in Sydney: me and Al got chatting to a couple, and on hearing the unmistakable Northern twang i asked where they were from...'Newcastle' was the reply. Its always a happy coincidence, there's not a lot of geordie travellers. Where in Newcastle? 'Jesmond'. This was a bit stranger. I asked if the girl knew the Peoples Theatre, and Jesmond Park East. Turns out, among lots of flabbergasted noises, that we lived just a couple of minutes away from each other, on either side of Armstrong Bridge. Not only that, but her mum had gone from living in Jesmond Park West, an extention of our road, and had married Charles Harrison, father of Jack, a childhood friend, and now lived in Melbury, literally round the corner! Weird. Lovely couple too. Anyway. We caught our ... read more

Not much to report really. I bought some Aboriginal art, a couple of photos and I played a lot of Digeridoos. They rock. Now I'm bracing myself for an 11 hr bus journey. Fun!... read more

An awful nights sleep was had due to the vast size of my dorm - 16 people - and the fact that they all insisted on snoring and getting up to use the bathroom at different times. I must ensure I'm suitably pissed tonight to ensure I sleep through any repeat disturbances. I decided to make the most of being woken up early and decided to head out to see the town of byron bay. The shops are a good medly of surf shops, hippy shops and souvenier shops peppered with a liberal amount of art galleries. This seems fairly typical for Australia - the small artist owned and operated art gallery is quite prevalent. I decided to go both healthy and cheap for lunch and opted for Hare Krishna run cafe 'Cardomon pod' for one ... read more

Saturday April 1st Lo all from OZ! Not a lot to report today… Today we left Byron Bay, (which I found out today is the “alternative lifestyle” capital of Australia…not that there’s anything wrong with that?) and head up to Surfers Paradise. I was getting a little behind on the blog so we went out in search of a café that has hi-speed internet. We found a little one about 5 minutes away that had a really good breakfast. Jason has some really good French toast, with the rest of us eating eggs and bacon. Surfers Paradise is about 1 hour away from where we stayed, but once we got close to it the traffic really slowed down. There is a huge construction boom going on here, with mega bucks being poured into this town. Surfers ... read more

The funniest thing happened last night. 1.30am, fast asleep until i think theres an earth quake! I roll over to find one of the English blokes on the floor, he had just fallen out of his top bunk bed! He got back in like nothing had happened, obviously drunk, Me and Skinny couldn't stop laughing!!... read more