The sun came out!!

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The weather has turned bad again, not too cold because we're still on the coast but raining everyday and overcast most of the time. Did a walk around Cape Byron and saw a huge pod of dolphins!! They were jumping around in the waves and it was amazing!! Watched them for ages even though the weather was average. Apart from that just chilled in Byron and enjoyed not driving!

Headed inland from Byron on some country roads that wound their way through the mountains, the countryside looked very English all of a sudden! Went through some tiny villages, Australia's population is so spread out that villages that wouldn't even make it onto a map in the UK are considered large villages here. If you plonked a town like Brighton or Reading here it would probably be bigger than most of there large cities, and have a much bigger population. We went to the famous town of Nimbin, famous for hippies, weren't disappointed there were lots of ageing hippies. The town is also famous because everyone gets high, we were there at 10.30am and most people were out drinking and smoking already, since we not the kind of girls who get drunk before midday we didn't hang around for long.

Went back to the coast, all plans to look around some of the national parks were ruined because of the weather and there was no point walking up mountains since they are too cloudy. We are racing up the coast very 'ahead of schedule', if we had a schedule, but at least we'll be hanging around in warmer areas later in the trip. Stayed in Coolangatta, a town south of Surfers Paradise and Brisbane, again raining but across the bay there was a fantastic view of the Brisbane skyline. Apart from that there wasn't much going on and we treked to a very uninspiring monument marking the New South Wales/Queensland border and that was about the most exciting thing of the day.

Woke up to SUNSHINE, serious shorts and tshirt weather!!!! Finally in Australia, the world's capital of chilling on beaches in the sun and there is real sun warm enough to sit on a beach!!! Went for a walk and got mistaken for locals, one of the most exciting things that has happened to me is being mistaken for a local, means I don't look as much like a lost tourist as I think we do, happened in Jinja and HK and now here! Getting a bit concerned that people don't guess straight away that in British because of my accent, don't know if that's them or me but I might start talking in a rediculously overdone British accent.

Australia is just as you'd expect it to be, but more, more surfers than you'd expect, more blond tanned people, more beaches.... and bigger, longer roads, huge wide open spaces...

Today was rainy but we decided to go into the nearby national , Springbook national park, do some walking and see the waterfalls, also drawn in by the promise of the 'best of all lookout' - although never made it (explain why in a minute!). So some shifty guy was checking out our van, we're pretty careful about locking everything but do leave stuff on view. Having said that we don't own anything of value, cheap phones, no ipods etc. Either way we moved the car and then went to walk down to a waterfall, we were only gone 5 minutes max but as we were walking back the guy was shutting the driver door and getting back into his car.... That morning it had rained in the van and we had laid a towel out to try to dry the mattress, either way he'd scooped everything we own of any value, cameras, cards, cash, phones into the towel and wrapped it all up. He'd also grabbed our rucksacks and handbags. I ran up and tried to stop him banging on the car and Siov stood behind the car, he drove into here but stopped and sped off. She was unhurt luckily. So spent the afternoon putting together a police report in Mudgeeraba, we don't have any number plate so they aren't even going to bother trying to track the stuff down. Wasn't very impressed though, I'd expect when 2 moneyless/phoneless/foreign/hysterical young girls turn up at a police station they'd sit you down, give you a cup of tea and talk it all through. But no, standing in the waiting room along with all the prats signing in for their bail or whatever being asked by slobos why we're there having to explain it all in front of everyone for hours. I'm most gutted about the fact he got hold of my scrapbook thing where I'd been collecting a bunch of stuff since the beginning of the trip.

Luckily we were planning to meet up with Robyne's (Siov's parents friend in Sydney) son Simon, who's at Bond uni in Robina. So we've decided to stay here for a night or 2. We're both still pretty shaken up and don't want to look at, drive, sleep in or do anything involving the van! It's sooo unsecure as demonstrated today and by the time we locked ourselves out and the NRMA broke in. I'm sure we'll work something out and be back on the road soon.

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Comments

[Rooby]

SHOCKED!! :O
This was the scariest blog you've done by farrr!! I'm glad siov was ok after the hit!! Misssing you guys even more after this if that is possible!, I hope you guys feel a lot better soon!! Really can't wait to see you!! Love you lots guys! xxxxxxxxxx