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Published: March 5th 2009
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my journey up the east coast has started!! here is my story from sydney to brisbane...
i arrived in sydney on 24th feb sleepy from my flight from darwin and my first job was to wash the entire contents of my backpack. after 9 days trecking everything was looking a bit grim, so i was left wearing a beach dress and my last pair of clean knickers!! using washing machines in hostels is a bit dodgy and im glad that i didnt bring anything white with me because nothing ever really comes out looking the same as when it went in!! after that boring task was done i went for a wonder to the harbour, and was a little taken a back when i saw the opera house....i think after seeing it in so many pictures and the fact that it is the one thing people think of when they think of australia i was a bit in awe!! i did actually think 'wow, im in sydney' as if i had only just realised. please remember how tired i was!!
spent the evening with ash and luke (two guys i met in asia) and had dinner at darlling harbour. it
was really nice to catch up with the boys and find out what they had been up to.
after an early night and a bit of a lie in i caught the ferry over to manly beach to meet ash for the day. manly is lovely and it was so nice to chill out on the beach for a few hours soaking up the sun and going for a walk to the look-out point before catching the ferry back to sydney. caught up with luke in the evening and went to look out over sydney harbour at night, absolutly stunning to see it all lit up, even though it was raining a bit! a quick drink turned into quite a few drinks and a fairly late night, which wasnt my smartest move considering i had to be up early for the blue mountains tour the next morning! trying to walk around the blue mountains with a hangover is not advised.
the blue mountains were awesome though and very pretty. i was slightly woriied that the driver of the bus was stoned but he was a source of amusemant all day! the best thing might have been the people i met
though, first got chatting to trish, a mental health nurse from leeds and then 2 girls interuppted and asked if i had trained at salford, they work on picu in manchester and it turns out that i trained with some of their friends. very random!! had a laugh with them all though as we almost got lost on a trail around the mountains and by the time my hangover had eased we had arranged to go out that night with another lovely girl christa.
the night out was actually a bar crawl called 'route 69' and as we were all made to wear the same t shirts and travelled around on a party bus i felt like i was back in university again!! it started in bondi beach and worked its way back to city centre sydney and it was a top night out!!
i spent the following day trying to plan my next 4 weeks up the coast and this unfortunatly took all day to do so i didnt have time to go over to bondi beach like i planned. however, after the previous 2 nights drinking and crazy antics i decided to be a bit more cultured and
sophisticated and i booked a ticket to the opera house!!!! i just thought as most people just go there to take a photo, i wanrted to go and watch something!! so i went to see the sydney symphony orcheastra play Mendelshons 'mid-summer nights dream' with extracts from the play itself. it was outstanding!! the music was just incredible and the actors were fantastic. inside the opera house was beautiful too and im so glad i did it. i did however end up in the scubar (backpacker bar) afterwards and since i had to be up at 5:30 for my bus up the coast there didnt seem much point in going to bed...
and it turns out i wasnt the only one, half of the passengers on the oz expereience bus hadnt been to bed either so we had a very quite morning on the the start of our journey! hayley the driver was hilarious though and kept us all going until we got to mojo surf camp in the evening. the evening was spent sitting around the campfire and getting to know my fellow surfer dudes.
woken up at the crazy hour of 6am (!!) for our surf lesson.
route 69!!
can you guess which one is me?! i am now officially a surfer chick. i loved it!!!! we had the theory lesson first and ocean safety awarness and then we had to get into a wet suit. now you would think that something black and fitted would be flattering, however wetsuits make everybody look like whales. definatly not atttractive!! i had great fun in the water though and after a few failed attempts, inhaling a few litres of seawater and paddling for what felt like hours, i did manage to catch some really good waves and stand up quite a few times!! success!! todays surfing injury: red grazed kness - nice!
arrived in byron bay in the afternoon and had a look around the cute little town which is just full of hippies and surfer dudes!! its so chilled out and very obviuos why it is the unemployment capitol of australia!!
met with becky and hannah (2 girls from surf camp) the following morning to try out surfing again. we hired what were supposed to be beginner boards but were so much smaller and thinner than the board at surf camp and it had very little wax. needless to say that this board combined with the
huge waves did not bring me success and the nearest i got to standing up was on my knees!! did have a random moment in the sea when i bumped into jonny who i met fom asia though!! todays surfing injury: brusied hip bones
afternoon was spent shopping with becky and out at cheeky monkeys bar at night which had been raved about so much by other people that it ended up being a bit of a let down!!
headed to the beach the next day just to chill out ond rest my aching surfing muscles!! its really hard work!! in the afternoon i caught the bus to surfers paradise and i did wonder if the bus had accidently dropped me off in benidorm.... lots of high rise apartment blocks and neon lights!!
yestaday i had a second surf lesson which was awesome and i found out why the place is called surfers paradise, it was just wave after wave after wave!! really good fun and i had success!! todays surfing injury: cut big toe and minor sun burn.
after chilling on the beach (can you see a running theme yet?) i was on the bus to brisbane, arriving
surfer chick!!
look at me stood up!! at night. due to how the busses work, im in brisbane for 3 nights, big mistake. its just another boring city and im not impressed at all. if i had known i would have skipped this altogether and got the bus to noosa this morning. but never mind, im sure i will find something to do!
hope eveyone at home is well xx
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