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Published: August 8th 2006
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Sunset at Surfers paradise
I love this one, its very apocolyptic This is the last blog about my trip down the east coast of australia, it's hideously late as i've been on the road so much but here's what I remember and I hope you enjoy it!
Well after leaving Noosa, we had literally a whistle stop in Brisbane (an hour between buses) where we met up with my friend Jayne who I had made whilst working in Sydney at the lovely custom call! Was really cool to catch up with her although was very brief. We also randomly bumped into some people we met on our whitsunday island trip! So it was onto Surfer's paradise which is kind of a bit what I imagine Miami to be like although maybe slightly tackier and with less bronzed babes but then we were there in the middle of winter! Lots of people complain about surfers paradise but I think if you want an almost ibiza style holiday/ want to catch some really good surf, its cool. It was still nice and warm although it was the winter and as you can see from the photo's we saw an awesome sunset (god i sound so aussie!). We only stayed here for one night,
The girls on tour.........
no this is not all our luggage, the life we choose eh? it would have been nice to stay longer and maybe have a surf lesson or two but unfortunately we were on a schedule.
So onto Byron Bay, lovely byron bay where we stayed for a few nights. It was nice to stop somewhere for a while and especially somewhere as nice as Byron bay! We stayed in the Arts factory which is really cool and has a swimming pool, sauna, lots of free stuff to eat and do -also got to watch englands final world cup match in the cinema they have there, shame they didn't win but it was a cool experience none the less. The main things we did in Byron were shopping, visiting the market and going on a day tour to nimbin: see below!
Nimbin is kind of a hippy village/ commune where people went and lived during the 60's, took a lot of drugs and never left! It was an amusing experience if nothing else as people are offering you cannabis and cannabis cookies as you walk down the street! The police in the local area seem to turn a blind eye to the goings on. The tour also included seeing some beautiful
countryside in the byron bay area including an amazing waterfall and visiting a hippy organic farm where we got free macadamia nuts (and they were delicious!). We also passed a rehabilitation centre for drugs and alcohol abuse. They work on the philosophy that its not necessarily the drugs which are the main problem and try to treat the emotional issue which are causing the person to abuse themselves with the drug. I don't think they use legal drugs as a substitute for the illegal ones to wean them off either and attendence to the centre is completely voluntary.
So after byron and nimbin we moved onto a place called Coff's Harbour for our final night before returning to Sydney. We were shown around by Jason, the uncle of a friend of Roopa's (see photo) and also met the grandparents of Roopa's friend too! They were really nice and showed us true aussie hospitality including teaching us the Tim Tam Bomb! Tim Tam's are similar to Penguin's and there are variations on the philosophy of how you do this but the way we were taught goes a little something like this:
1) assemble your ingredients; a cup of coffee/ tea
and as many Tim Tam's as you want!
2)bite off both ends of you Tim Tam
3)dip one end of your Tim Tam into your selected beverage and suck as hard as you can!
4)as soon as you get some of your beverage inot your mouth, put the whole Tim Tam into your mouth as soon as possible!
5) repeat as desired!!!
We also did some of the lovely little walks in the area and went up to the lookout over the bay. It is beautiful there. Not to mention visiting the Big Banana! There is a strange phenomenon of tourist attractions in australia where they like to celebrate things that regions are famous for by creating an oversized concrete model of. I have photo's of two of them which are on this blog but apparently there is a big ned kelly, a big pineapple and I think at least 20 other things dotted around australia! The Big Banana was the first one. And then it was our last bus journey and arriving into Sydney at midnight! My flight onto Alice Springs was very early the next morning so had to get the shuttle to the airport at 5
or some ridiculous hour. Had a fantastic time down the coast with the girls as I'm sure you can tell😊
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