Hi everyone (by Louise),

BE WARNED this blogs is long, we stayed in Byron 6 nights and did so much. Sorry everyone! Hope you enjoy!

Bob's trusted me with this Byron Bay blog, although................ he's just told me to type that haha. We arrived at Byron Bay on the night and met our new room mates, Louise and Simon from Sweden and a Japanese guy whose name I couldn't pronounce so lets just call him Dave. We crashed in our bunk beds that night after our bus journey ready for the next day. On our first full day we went down the highstreet and checked out Byron. Byron is a small beach town where everyone walks round in beachwear on skateboards, carrying surfboards and bare foot! Theres loads of nice cafes dotted about and theres no big chain type shops, there mostly locally run one offs. That day we spent most of the time in the travel agents talking about different sailing trips to book. Its exhausting planning this stuff because once you think you've found a good boat, then the other competing travel agent just slags it off and your back to square one. However this is where we met tribal jimmy, he works for tribal travel believe it or not and let me paint you a picture of what he was like, he had dread locks down to his knees, he was from Cardiff and spoke like an American! All the stories we heard were, maaaan this trip was sick......I did it when i travelled and me and my mates had this big joint and we past it round ............it was sick maaan! A lot of his stories involved having a big joint and passing it round haha he was mental! But at least he kept us amused all the other travel agents were so boring and b****y!

That night we decided to go to cheeky monkeys bar/night club, because everybody we met recommended it to us. Its meant to be a backpackers dream..... cheap food, cheap drinks, free stuff and face paints what more can you want haha Even Katie says it was the place to go so off we went.

(Bobs writing now i got bored) On the way to cheeky monkeys all I got in my ear was oo i hope we win some free stuff, however i was trying to down play the idea just so Louise wouldn't get her hopes up too much because i bet it was hard to win. Anyway we just entered the place and it was quite busy so we ordered our cheap meals with FREE drink and mossied on down to the bar, in the mean time i was checking the place out, having a look around and the DJ was handing out free jugs of beer. Louise was collecting our free drinks at the bar but i soon pickedup the idea of the game, the DJ would call out the name of a flag like, English flag, French flag etc etcand the first person to bring him back a photo on their camera would win. Anyway it was the last jug left and i had my sights on it, but to make things even better he threw in FREE surf board hire for 2 days with this jug. So i was just propped up on the bar chilling out waiting for Louise to get the drinks, but really i was wide awake, alert, just waiting for him to say that flag haha.... BRAZIL!!! I was off like a shot and i knew exactly where it was i was already laughing muhahaha but obviously my sharp movements had drawn unwanted attention and suddenly i had contenders, however i was the first person to get the shot now i just had to run back and show the DJ but i was stopped in my tracks by some SCHMUCK who held me back and blocked me while he got the shot and without causing a scene i didn't want to trip him or pull his hair haha he beat me back to the DJ but fortunately for me he had a crappy Kodak camera no match for my trusty CANON turns out his picture was just blurry colours so DJ said it was no good haha....... so i just calmly stepped in with the picture and to rub salt into the wound my picture quality was perfect and the colour; faultless haha What comes around goes around!! Meanwhile Louise didn't know where i had got to but i returned one jug of beer richer and a 2 day surf hire.....not bad since we had only been in the place 5 minutes if that! We sat down had our meals and drank our free beer then later on there was another game. This one you had to throw a little rugby ball through a hole the size of a cereal bowl, so we went down to the front of the stage to see the action, these people must of been really drunk or just plain useless because not one went through the hole, ten minutes had passed, 15 minutes had passed... this was getting beyond a joke, so there was only one thing left for me to do............. end this thing once and for all, i handed the jug of beer to Louise and walked to the back of the queue but it was that packed with drunks waiting for a turn i just waited in the corner, it got to the point where the DJ was getting sick so he said look.... is there anyone out there that actually thinks they can do this???? So im waiting patiently in the corner with my hand up, oooo pick me pick me! Il do it easy!! So he throws me the ball, the crowd goes silent in anticipation, Louise urges me to go to the middle so i have a straight shot but it was too crowded so i said nar its okay il get it in from here. Bear in mind I'm right in the corner so i was a good 10 metres away and the hole was shaped more like an egg than a circle but that didn't faze me too much i was more concerned about the poor people who thought they were going to get a go after me haha fools!

It was now time to collect, so i raised the ball above my shoulder and the crowd let out a small 'ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh' as soon as the ball left my hand i knew it was good. Didn't even touch the sides...........swishhh!!! The place went wild, Louise was screaming everybody was jumping all over the place and the place erupted into applause! Me and Lou were high fiving, that's what it must feel like to score a goal at Wembley in the FA cup final haha it felt great! Louise has never been so proud of me she started devising plans to come back every night and wipe the place out of prizes, she says we won't drink, stay sober and alert and we could make some serious winnings. All the success of that was a bit much for us, i think it was going to her head haha So we retired with all our free Nimbin trip and the whole night was a big freebie!! Woo!

Next day we made full use of the free bike hire, and biked along the coast to the most easterly point in Australia Byron bay lighthouse but god what a struggle getting up there. We did it though, shame it was overcast because it would have been a great view from the top. While we had the bikes we cycled to the places to book the Nimbin trip and then went to the beach to pick up my surf board hire, i was chuffed to bits walking up to the counter to collect it but was gutted when told that the voucher was no longer valid because that company went into liquidation and this is operating as a new company and wouldn't honour the free gift.............devastated! haha

Following day we took a party bus to Nimbin and the two Geordie girls were on it aswell, co-incidence.Nimbin is a hippy town that is full of hippies and is stuck in the 70's, they still have protests to stop heavy policing of the town mainly because of the drugs. However in retrospect its full of scruffs to be honest who are taking advantage of the tourism selling us space cakes and cookies! We didn't have anything so we just got drunk instead. That night we went back to cheeky monkeys, not to win prizes but to complain about my surf hire. We got more free drink vouchers for the inconvenience and some new surf hire!

Next day i got out my first surf board mainly just to hold and walk around with and get a few photographs with it haha i did try it but it was impossible!!!!! I expected to just do it without any lessons...............big mistake!! So I retired and me and Louise had soooo much fun with the body boards all day! To top a good day off we treated ourselves to a nice tea, we had burritos and kicked backed with a couple of ciders and chilled out in the hammock haha its a hard life!

Next morning.......and i mean early morning we hired the bikes out and headed out to see sunrise at the most easterly point in Australia, Byron bay lighthouse. It was a 5.00am start but it was totally worth it!!

The next day we made some friends John and Hannah and John passed on some tips for surfing and the next day we all headed to the beach and john gave me some surfing lessons and by the end of the day i was standing up and by this time i was totally hooked and had the surfing bug now all i wanna do is surf!

Just to summarise this massive blog.................Byron bay was BRILLIANT!! We both had an amazing time and loved every minute. Next stop surfers paradise to see jack and lena!!

Love Adam and Louise xx