I love Byron Bay

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We finally made it out of Sydney after spending 2 long weeks there, and we could not have been happier or more excited to leave. Naturally our flight was delayed at the airport, and we were all a little annoyed because we were supposed to wait in the Gold Coast airport for 2 hours for our shuttle to the hostel. So as we are waiting all these people start coming in with cameras and there is a Press setup, then all these guys come in and tons of press people so I asked a girl with a press pass what was going on, turns out the whole quicksilver surf team had just arrived for this huge competition, then she told me that Kelly Slater was there also, i wasn't sure what he looked like so she showed me a picture because she had sat next to him on the plane. Turns out he was standing right near us, and just like a totally normal person waited for all of his surfboards to come through baggage and then loaded them in his car by himself. We took some photos also, but we all felt kind of bad about it so we tried to be really discrete. It was pretty cool and the perfect welcome to the Gold Coast.

After all the excitement we arrived in Byron Bay, and i think we were all in love immediately. The town is really small and has a total hippie feel to it. Our hostel was amazing and like a block from the ocean. To top it all off there was a great mexican place across the street and the owner was from Southern California so we had to eat there every day! We had some great times out in Byron, did some shopping (the shops were almost as great as the mexican food) and just had a great time in general. We considered staying longer but felt that the next stop might be just as wonderful so we forced ourself to move on.

The day we left Byron we went for a nice walk along the coast to the most Easternly point in Australia and to an amazing light house, the views and beach are to die for there and I must recommend Byron Bay to anyone that is traveling in Australia.

The next stop on the trip was Surfers Paradise, which sounds amazing by the name but it is clearly lacking a lot. Its crazy touristy with lots of high rise hotels. We have clearly been spoiled by the hostel and free accommodations that we have had so far because our place in Surfers was pretty gross, but I guess it just added to the experience. The one good part about Surfers is that there are tons and tons of backpackers so we took part in a backpackers night out on Saturday, the night consists of 4 different clubs and free drinks at the hostel before and a free drink at every club, I wont go into details of the night but it was crazy/fun and a good experience to have.

We all planned to spend all day Sunday hungover at the beach, but when i woke up the girls informed me that there was a tsunami warning and we couldn't even go in the water. In addition to the warning it was raining almost all day. All we were able to do was go out and have some lunch and do some shopping. The rain has yet to stop, it just keeps pouring and pouring, we are hoping that the weather changes between here and our next stop in Brisbane.

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Comments

[steve]

rain????
It seems like you are always in the rain..........hope that tan is coming along okay. I watched the cross country skiing at the Olympics today and Johan Olson from Sweden came in 3rd. Trinity is still winning in the BB playoffs (beat Fall River by 2 friday nite) so we go to Hamilton City Wed. Love, Dad