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Published: April 14th 2012
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I got on the Oz Experience bus from Sydney not really knowing what to expect but it was great fun from the word go! At the bus stop I got chatting to a few girls from England, and knew it would be easy to make friends as everyone is so friendly. The Oz Exp bus driver/tour guide asked us all to come to the front and say our names, where we have been/are heading on our travels, what colour underwear we are wearing and also whether we fold or scrunch our toilet paper! My first thought was Oh God this is going to be mortifying, but it was actually a really good icebreaker! We also had to announce whether we were a red/orange or green light... as you can imagine most people on the bus were single!
Our first stop was Spot X surf camp. I wasn't too keen on this stop as not being very sporty I was dreading surfing but I am so glad I went. All of the Oz experience travellers that got of on this stop were really nice, there were about 10 of us in total. There were 2 girls (one Sweedish, one English), a guy from Bristol called Chris who I'd already met on the bus, 3 more English guys who seemed fun, a friendly Canadian couple and a Irish couple who kept to themselves a bit. We arrived in the evening and had a yummy dinner at the camp before heading out to the bottle shop to buy some booze! We then had quite a chilled night chatting, playing drinking games (everyone laughed at me during 'Five' because I just didn't get it at first lol) and then sat around the fire whilst one guy was on a guitar singing tunes such as Oasis's 'Wonderwall' and Greendays 'Time of my life.' We then crashed out in two cabins with bunk beds.
In the morning we were woken up at 8am to have breakie before a 2 hour beginners surf lesson. The weather was not great to begin with and I was less than amused at the prospect of putting on a dripping wet wetsuit but eventually got on with it.The Aussie instructor was really good and showed us on the sand how to pop up on the board.. as you can imagine the girls and I were giggling and thinking we were never going to get it! But once we were all in the water it was fine.. a couple of extra instructors were around to help us all but the French one seemed to give me special attention, perhaps because I was bobbing around in the water scared out of my mind! He helped me a lot, showing me what to do, and held my board until a wave came. I shrieked a lot to begin with, and told him I was sure I was going to drown! He reassured me that if all went wrong he would cheer me up with a french kiss.. typical french man! Turns out I owe him a lot because thanks to him I managed to surf quite a few waves, and there are even pictures online to prove it!! 😊
We all then got back on the bus in the afternoon to head to Byron Bay which everyone was very excited about as it's known to have a great party scene. We were not dissapointed.. the tour guide got us all to the famous 'Cheeky Monkeys' bar at 8pm where we had a table. He got in free beer which I don't particularly like but alcohol's alcohol! All drinks were also cheaper with our Oz Experience wrist bands. Later on there was a wet t-shirt competition which was erm, interesting!! Girls from all around the world got up to compete for the $300 prize, dancing, getting sprayed with water, stripping and grinding!! It was quite amusing, I think all the boys thoroughly enjoyed it! All of our group got incredibly drunk, and danced the night away on the tables (made to dance on - part of the Cheeky Monkeys experience!)
The next day we did a day tour to Nimbin which was included on our pass. Nimbin is a little hippy town about an hour away from Byron Bay which is famous for weed and hash cookies. I've never been anywhere like it, there were shops called 'Bring-a-bong' and everything was so bright and old fashioned even the cars. From the moment we stepped of the bus we were offered weed and after looking around for a bit we all went to a little area to have a smoke as it almost seemed rude not to(sorry mum!) We then went to have a group bbq, but as most of us were stoned the conversation round the table made absolutely sense and we kept losing track of what we were talking about!
Today the weather has been really nice so I headed down to the beach with a girl I met in my dorm. Her name's Carol, she's from Ireland and is an absolute sweetheart. We also met Katie and Jess (the girls on my tour) down there. It was a really nice chilled out day. I love Byron Bay.. it's such a cool beach town with plenty of cool boutiques, bars and restaurants.
Tonight.. well I'm heading back down to Cheeky Monkeys of course!! 😊
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