Jo comes to Oz - Roadtrip Pt 1..via Palm Beach!

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Soooo part of Jo coming here was that I will then travel up to Byron Bay with her and her friends for a few days and then come back to Sydney. They awesomely planned it so that they will be renting a car and roadtripping upwards, and luckily had put me on the insurance which means I can drive too.. yay!! I haven't driven in SO long so I was super excited. Soooo we got up early about 8am to catch the bus at half past and meet the others at Wake Up. I stupidly packed my backpack up way more than it needed to be but I always get paranoid that I haven't packed enough and then end up with 10x more than I actually intended. So me, Jo and Dave are all squished on the bus and it just so happens there's been some sort of roadwork incident and the entire road is chockablocka. We were stuck in a jam for aaaaaaaaages! Eventually reached wake up in the pouring rain (it's been none stop raining for the past 3 days!) The other girls were there, and I bumped into Lee.. AGAIN! He seems to follow me everywhere that boy, he's got some fruit picking work now which he will be starting in March methinks. Then we got a taxi to the airport which turned out super cheap between us all and we arrived at the car rental place. Got all our stuff sorted and then our car turned up, its a huge silver beast of a jeep.. absolutely awesome! So we load all our stuff in, get comfy and set off. The car is also automatic and Becky is the only one who has ever driven automatic so she went first. It felt SO good to be in a car again instead of a damn bus or any other type of public transport which I HATE. Anyhoo we also rented a sat nav which took us straight over harbour bridge and on our way to our first stop; Palm Beach! The others had heard me raving about how beautiful it is and seeing as we were going up north anyway, the logical thing was to stop along the way. Halfway there and I realise I had left my pillow at the car rentail hire.. devoed! My lucky trusty pillow! However I rang and they said they would keep it in the cupboard for when I return to collect it.

The sat nav took us on a beautiful coastal route to get to the beach, wayyy better than the bus I got last time! It was absolutely stunning. Strangely enough, about 3/4 hour out of Sydney city and the entire weather had changed. Sydney was raining and up north it was gorgeous! Arrived at palm beach with clear skies and sunshine. AHHHH every time I go to that beach it gives me tingles. Not just because it's the home of home and away, but because the place itself is just jaw-droppingly beautiful. The sand is more orangey than white but the view is just to die for. The others seemed pretty in love with it too. We immediately kicked our shoes off and went for a paddle and relaxed on the beach for a bit. I showed them all the typical H&A sights.. like the surf club/diner etc etc. Then we went for a walk along the rocks at the side. We were only there for a couple of hours but it really was lovely. I still think it's my favourite beach of Sydney, by miles. Anywayyyy then we carried on our journey. Listening to a bit of radio on the way.. Ozzie radio is WEIRD. Like they have no morals and just say absolutely anything, whether it's swearing or something crude, it's totally bizarre. They make England look so prudeish! This time it's Claire's turn to drive. We're now on our way to Nelson Bay, which is where we were staying that night. Basically they have another friend called Bec who they also work with back home. She's actually Aussie herself and is coming along to Byron with us too, however her grandmas holiday home is in Nelson Bay and she said we could stay there for a night while it was empty. So as we're driving we were all just a bit like.. where the hell are we. It felt like we were in the middle of nowhere in hillbilly land. Definitely true Australia and very uncommercial areas.. full of cowboy type creatures. Soon enough we arrived at the apartment.

The place itself was lovely. Very clean and stuff but I was super paranoid of poisonous things biting me in the night as I was on the sofa in the living room.. and this clearly was the type of place where spiders are. In fact as we were walking towards the door first thing I see is a huge spider crawling on the wall.. great! Bec is an absolute darling. A fully fledged passionate Christian but is awesome in the sense she will never preach it onto anyone and she knows that she has her beliefs and other people have theirs. I really do love her and we get on super well, she's so cute and innocent but also crazy like me. She had been to the supermarket and bought a load of stuff for us to have a bbq that night! Awesome times. We all got settled and me, Becky and Bec went to check out the bbq on the bay to see how it works. We went on a lovely walking route down by the side towards the sea. Saw some weird insects and stuff along the way, kind of cool but scary in case they decided to take a nibble. The bay was beautiful, it was super peaceful and it made me really want a swim and the bbq seemed pretty easy to use, a public one that you just press a button and it lights up. We headed back and reported back to the others, so we collected all the food and drove back down to the bbq and started to set up. However then we saw the spiders. There was some hanging ABOVE the barbie, and I spotted one actually under the table we were planning on eating. Also by this time it had gotten dark and we couldn't see anything, there was no light on the bbq. So a couple of us started to have a freak out saying that we would feel more comfortable just eating back at the apartment without worrying about anything, Jo kind of agreed and to be honest so did I a bit. Even though a bbq would be great, it just didn't seem practical. So just as we had set up, we packed it up again and headed back to the flat!

Turns out the food was fucking sexy. We had marinated chicken breasts in honey soy sauce and some chicken skewers with salad and some bread. It was absolutely HEAVENLY! Completely stuffed we then decided to head off to bed and get a good night sleep ready to continue our journey tomorrow. Becky and Claire in one room, Jo and Bec in another.. and me on my own in the living room! BOOO, however it did mean that I could set my laptop up and watch dawson's creek. Unfortunately I was absolutely roasting but didn't want to open the patio in door in case a spider crawled over me in the night.. in fact I spent most the night waking up worrying I wouldn't wake up in case a redback spider bit me or something, aaah! So eventually after a lot of sweating and rolling around, I drifted off to sleep into wonderland..

xoxo Gossip Girl.

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