Surfers & Byron Bay

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Okay, so it is Greg doing the latest blog (So this will be brief) as Nik is working this afternoon.

If memory serves me correct, the last blog entry was the Blue Mountains which was in January. Since then things have pretty much been the same here in sunny Coogee. We have now reached the end of summer and the temperature is slightly cooler at roughly 25-26 degrees. Practically all of the guys we hung about with over the summer for the last few months have left Sydney. Ian and Sam the two English boys are travelling the east coast in a camper van, Tom from Cardiff is in Perth, and Gaz and Dean from Scotland left just after NYE. All that remains is myself, Nik, Dom from Swindon and Dean's cousin Hayley, which is a shame as we all got on really well. Plans have been made to meet up back home in a slightly cooler climate.

In terms of work, Nikki is still working in Barzura, and I am still djing. I have managed to get another gig in a place called Candys Apartment, which is in the Kings X area of Sydney. The guy that runs the night is from Glasgow, so I managed to get extra work playing more of the music I enjoy. I am now djing three nights a week which is cool, and I am starting another night at the end of March. I am playing football for a local club over here called Glebe Wanderers which is a good laugh. Most of the guys are British, but there are a few token Aussies. The first game I played was 30 degrees in the middle of the summer which was unbearable. I will never complain back home when the mercury tops 17.

Having done a few extra shifts, and with Nik working five days a week, we have managed to buy ourself a car. We bought a Ford Festiva, which is like a Ford Fiesta back home. It cost us all in 700 pounds, and so far we have had it up in Manly, which is the north of Sydney, and on Tuesday we are going to take it to Palm Beach, where home and away is filmed. The plan is to take the car up the coast when we leave Sydney to travel to Cairns, roughly a trip of 2000km so that should be fun.

Our latest trip was in February when we went to the Gold Coast in Queensland, and Byron Bay at the top of NSW. We flew on the Sunday morning, arriving in Queensland at 8.45am. As soon as we stepped of the plane the humidity was unbelievable, and was roughly 27 degrees at 9am. Jacki (our flatmate) has relatives in an area called Surfers Paradise which is basically a huge stretch of beach with skyscrappers galore. We stayed at Jackie's sisters house on our first night, then stayed with her mum on the second. Surfers is a gorgeous place as you can judge by the pictures. It reminds me slightly of Benidorm, except a thousand times cleaner an nicer. We went to the observation deck of the Q1 tower which is one of the tallest buildings in the Southern Hemisphere. The view was amazing.We went for dinner that night at the local Mexican, however by the time 11pm arrived, I was in my kip as I had not got any sleep the previous night due working till 3am.

The second day we took a short trip to Byron Bay at the top end of NSW. Byron is basically a kind of hippy hang out. Everything is relaxed and easy going. People tend to spend most of their days at the beach surfing etc. The beach is one of the nicest I have visited. The sun was split in the sky, and we spent most of our time body surfing the waves. I found out later that a woman had been attacked by a Great White shark the previous year. Overlooking the beach is a lighthouse that marks the most easterly point in Australia. We worked out that the nearest land apart from small islands would be South America, roughly a ten hour plane journey. We were told that on occasion you can see migrating dolphins, and as we looked out too sea, we saw a couple of dolphins swimming along the coast.

Our final day in Queensland was spent at Sea World where Nikki took about a million pictures of the various sharks in the aquarium. Nikki also managed to get close to some Dolphins as the gate to the Dolphin theatre was unlocked. We snuck in, and managed to get some great pictrues of Nikki beside a dolphin. We caught the plane home at 8pm, arriving back in a rainy Sydney. The trip was amazing, and we have decided we are going to revisit Surfers and Byron when we travel up the coast.

Two weeks ago, we also went to one of the final music festivals of the summer at Randwick Racecourse. Basement Jaxx were head lining, and to be honest were pretty poor, however Grandmaster Flash stole the show. The sun was split in the sky, the alcohol was flowing and all in all we had a cracking day. I also gave the roller disco a try, but having never skated before, and after a few shandy's I spent more time on the ground than I did on my skates, more often than not dragging Nik down with me.

I think that wraps everything up. We have a few more trips planned. We are heading up to a place called Port Stephens (NSW) in two weeks, and we have just booked our flights for Melbourne (Victoria) and Tasmania in April for 6 days.

Hope all is well back home.

Speak soon.

Greg & Nikki.

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