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Flag of Australia Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia
Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Byron Bay

We caught the overnight bus out of Sydney and it was raining really heavy. We had originally decided to book in a hostel in Sydney for one night but when we checked the hostels near the station were full or had separate rooms. So the decision was made for is to get on the bus. We had heard that there was a free bus service that runs around the city so we went looking for it, pretty easy really – big bus with FREE BUS written all over it. Why hadn't we heard of this when we arrived it would have saved our feet the pain. The coach was 10.15pm so we pretty much got on and tried to sleep. The Journey was fine but I got no sleep on this bus, which is so frustrating and then when I finally got comfortable and had a snooze the journey was over and we were kicked off. However when we did get off the bus the sun was shining down upon us....fantastic!

Byron Bay

Byron Bay is one of Australia’s best known towns and most people I know who have been to Australia have said at one time or another "you must go there" so we did. It is a very popular surfer’s town and in December is overpopulated with 'schoolies’, that’s right every 17-18 year old in Australia heads to the coast to party in this very popular town. We arrived, checked in our hostel and wandered down to the beach to chill, we were both half awake and just wanted to lie on our towels and chill, but when we got to the beach there they were hundreds of schoolies screaming, giggling, boys chasing girls and girls chasing boys, all we needed was the Benny Hill theme tune and we were set! It was a little overcast so we sat on our towels watching the shenanigans. The next thing I knew, the sun was blazing down on us and I had woken up all pink....ahhhh! I woke Justin up, it turns out we had been asleep for 1 hour or so and the sun decided to come out and burn us. There were a couple of promotional girls walking around the beach to promote a local pub $7 for a meal and a pint so I asked her what time etc. Then she continued around giving everyone else the same information and a wrist band – Why didn’t we get a wrist band. We decided it was because we were a couple and not the fact we may be too old, as it was a promotion for a wet t shirt competition, I mean what’s wrong with Justin’s boobs, not good enough for them!

Cape Byron

That evening we headed across the road to Cheeky Monkeys bar for our cheap meal and there was a long queue of 17-18 year olds waiting to get in, we just walked straight to the front, turns out they were getting id checks done haha. We got our $7 curry and watered down beer and sat watching the school disco happen right before our eyes to which we discussed, Did we behave like that when we were 18....I’m sure we did! Justin went to the bar for another drink and it was four deep, then he asked if any of them were getting served they all looked really uncomfortable and said “Ah err uhh no” they were too scared to ask for a beer, it was so funny. After that we decided to slope off and go to the cinema. That night it was crazy party, party, party in our hostel, all night so we didn’t get much sleep. The following morning we chilled out and I opened my advent calendar from Lea to try and get me in the festive mood, it’s very difficult when the sun is blazing to feel in the festive mood, there’s hardly any decorations up anywhere and no Christmas music in any shops.

Byron Bay

We tried to get away from the schoolies and took a walk up to Cape Byron lighthouse via the golden sandy beach, we stopped at the most easterly point in Australia and saw the picturesque 1901 lighthouse. We sat looking for bottle nose dolphins and humpback whales which can be seen passing through during their northern and southern migrations but we didn’t see any. We decided to get a bottle of wine each and join in the party at the hostel because there was one every night, we thought that at least after the wine we might sleep better and it did, we got chatting to various people mostly Dutch, German and Canadian and we learned a few new card games one of which is called fuck the dealer which was a great laugh especially when I was on a loosing streak and had to drink all of my wine, much to everyone’s hilarity.

The following day it was overcast again so we went to a travel company and spoke to a guy about options for Christmas, we spent all morning in the shop looking into sailing trips, he got us a really good deal on a 3 day sailing trip to the Whitsunday Islands so we decided to do that on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, he also gave us lots of discounted hostels for our journey north. We left feeling excited for Christmas day now we had something to get excited about. We caught the bus the following day to Surfers Paradise which is about 3 hours away and hopefully schoolieless.

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