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Published: January 22nd 2012
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Ric:
Sorry for the delay folks but the last few weeks have been pretty packed with activities and as travelers we have been experiencing the best Australia has to offer.
After new year, Naz and I just could not wait to get back to somewhere familiar, which is why we decided we'd take a trip to Newcastle upon Australia. On arrival we found familiar streets such as Jesmond and Shields Rd, although those of you who are back home in the Toon will be relieved to know that these streets are indeed nothing like the ones back home.
We stayed in a hostel near the beach, which was alright, apart from we shared the room with two Jormins who were obismal craic. Anyway we ventured out to the beach to find a million children on their school holidays, which was nice to see, but after a few hours of catching lethal rays from the sun we decided to venture out and compare what this Newcastle had to offer. After being in the Sheffield-esque city centre with not even a decent shop to enquire about my broken mp3 player, we stumbled into an Irish pub where we found out
that Newcastle United would be playing that night against Gold Coast.
We arrived at the Newcastle United Jets stadium, holding a 33,000 capacity but probably hosting 7000 for the day, to find a team of slutty cheerleaders handing out cheering cards...so of course we asked for a photo with them. We sat through the match cheering with the crowd and making friends with people who were entertained at our common ground that we were from Newcastle in UK. That night we went to bed, with our conversationless room mates and went to sleep so that we could get out ofNewcastle the next night.
We took the overnight bus to Byron Bay and arrived the next morning; woken up only by the glistening sunrise, and heat. This place fits Australia´s stereotype perfectly, beautiful long stretches of golden, beach, great surfing conditions, home and away huts and an all round surfer style party atmosphere. We had met some fellow Brits in the room and played ring of fire with some Canadians. From this, we came to the conclusion that we are the ultimate binge drinkers (excluding the Irish), we saw the Canadians one by one falling to the floor and
even being sick...whilst all the brits were barely tipsy, and were left sitting there stunned to silence, till one of us said "lets go to cheeky monkeys!"
If you are familiar with the film Coyote Ugly, this bar is just like that apart from they were more relaxed in terms of health and safety, and less geared towards a sexy female USP. In place of a dancefloor was three long benches where everyone fought, stumbled and fell all over each other in a bid to get to the top, the main dance was a fist pump in the air as there was no room for anything more elaborate, we just loved it we did...
The next night, we unintentionally ended up in cheeky monkeys again but this time watching an amateur male strip show (some girls we were with wanted to go), it was hillarious and quite deservedly, the fattest, least attractive bloke won purely for drawing a sixpack on himself with lipstick. The only person we can think of who might have competed is El Playboy himself, Micheal Close.
At Byron Bay we also tried surfing, it was a blast and as you may have seen
by my profile pictures, I'm a pro. We're definately gonna keep doing it in Whitley Bay. It was time to leave Byron Bay to go to Brisbane, we definitely reccommend Byron Bay for anyone who passes Australia, it is a beautiful place and great fun.
Brisbane...what a place. You see, if you were to talk to other travellers, they would probably tell you that theres nothing to do in Brisbane. I would personally tell these people they can fuck off back to Hull or wherever they came from. Its understandable that its not a typical traveller place. Its not necessarily cheap, theres not many cheap trashy backpacker bars, its not big enough to get lost in and hasn't got a beach (as if these people aren´t sick of beaches). But let me tell you about Brisbane. This place has everything you could possibly ask for if you lived here. With a booming business district, this city offers opportunities for those looking to come here. A handful of art museums holding famous collections of world art (currently Matisse), a range of sports and outdoor activities for the hobbyist amongst us, acres of greenery and parks dotted around the centre and
most spectacular of all, a man-made beach on the side of the river that overlooks the modern bridges and metropolitan skyscrapers. Not only that, but the beach is seperated in many different sections; a lake section, a tropical white sandy beach section, a river section and a childrens pool and sprinkler section, which me and Naz had a ball in!
Brisbane was supposed to be where we chilled out before moving to our planned activities further up the coast. This is what we did, up to the final night...We left for the beach at midday and did a spot of paddle boarding (standy up surfing/kayaking/back-breaking) with full intentions of having a good rest and an early night as we were due to leave at 6am the next morning. HOWEVER, once we decided to go to the backpacker bar for dinner, and we realised there was a wet t-shirt competition later on that night, there was only ever gonna be one outcome and it was not an early night. Waking up with flashbacks of tits flying everywhere and ´goon´ drinking competitions with the locals until 4am, we just weren´t in the mood to pack. After waking up everyone who was
sleeping and inadvertantly losing items of clothing, still off our rockers, we meandered up to the bus station to meet a companian who would later have to put up with our drunken craic on the bus on the way to Noosa. That same day we were going camping in the bush for three whole days, getting drunk might have been a bad idea...
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