Surfers to Byron

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Well I'm afraid this is going to be a pretty crap entry as I spent most of this time drinking and sunbathing, and has managed to delete all the good photos I wanted to put on this blog entry (vvv.upsetting, still dealing with the lose - even though it was my fault).

We arrived in Surfers and checked into Sleeping Inn, a rather nice hostel were we had our own little appartment. I was not particularly looking forward to Surfers Paradise as I knew it was going to be really tacky, but as I'd built it up in my mind to be soooo awful, it wasn't too bad. Did a bit too much shopping and enjoyed sunning myself on the beach. The night life would have been great if everyone hadn't been under 20. Unfortunatly the place was still awash with Schoolies, so the first night out was spent batting off 19yr old boys. The second night was better as despite my protests we went on a 'backpacker' bar crawl, which actually was much fun as we spent the night with may over the age of 20. A lot of alcohol consumed and dancing.

The next day, myself, Jo and Preet moved on to Coollengatta (or something like that) with two guys we met in Brisbane, Paul and Dan. Paul had a car so offered to drive us which was cool. We had been told by several people that this place was really chilled out and pretty, so we decided to make a stop to have a quite night to recover from Surfers before we hit Byron Bay. Arrived and checked in, Sun Strip Budget Accommodation which advertised inself as fantastic, unsophisticated traveler accom. which we thought was very funny. Anyway, the manager was a cross between Bazil Faulty and a sgt major. He barked the 'rules' at us then insisted on taking us on a long tour around the building. It very qucikly became clear that we had actually checked into an 80's style old peoples home. There were wrinklies everywhere who looked at us like we really didn't belong (which abviously we didn't). It seemed that the place was where a lot of old people who prob live an hour down the road come for their hols every year. Despite this, the beds were really comfy and there was a nice big kitchen to prepare a good meal, so we were happy. Paul knocked up a chicken stir fry and I bought chocolate cake, and it was a very relaxing night with us all asleep by 11. We were catching the bus the next afternoon, but in the morning we went to the top of Tweeds Head, the ajoining town and stop on the boarder between New South Wales and Queensland. Checked out the beaches but had to be back for the bus, so didn't get time for the swim.

We had booked ourseleves into a hostel in Byron whilst in Surfers, but the girls arrived before us and called saying there was NO WAY we we're staying there was it was full of hippies, spiders and filth, so we were all desperately ringing around trying to find elsewhere (looking for 7 beds in a very busy Byron, not good!!). We managed to find beds, but were split for the first night. Next week we all managed to get into the Holiday Village and again had a really night 8 bed apartment. Very well positioned opposite the only night club, Cheeky Monkeys and next to the Super Market - bingo! Spent a week there bumping into most of the people we'd met coming down the coast, good to see some more than others. Despite it being a cross between a youth club disco and Infernos in Clapham, we spent every night in Cheeky Cheekys very drunk dancing on metel picnic tables. The weather wasn't great so sleeping a lot of the day didn't matter too much. Tried body boarding one day which was great fun and enjoyed tanning myself when the sun did come out. After a fab week we then had to say goodbye to Byron and board our Premiar bus for the last time for a 13hr trip down to Sydney.

Am now here in the big city and preparing for Christmas, but will write all about that another day...

(Really sorry for the poor spelling, don't have time to read this back and spell check - hope it makes sense)

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