I've got quite behind with the old blog so this is a long and rambling account of the last 2 weeks on the East coast!
I wanted to get out of Hervey Bay as soon as possible but unfortunately there wasn't an Oz bus the next day so I made the decision to fork out for a greyhound. I'm quite glad I did, as it confirmed my suspicions that greyhounds are dull, lifeless buses and its worth making the investment in the oz bus which is lots more fun! It helped me get to Noosa quicker though which was all i needed for this occasion. The other consequence of catching a bus on my own was that I arrived on my own! Its the first time throughout the whole trip when I've had to think of ways to amuse myself, so after checking in I caught the free koalas bus back into the the town and after stocking up suncream and treating myself to a boost juice I hit the beach and had some great me-time with a book and the Fratellis. Brilliant. I also bumped into a couple of dutch girls I'd met on Fraser so I arranged to eat our free dinner with them in the hostel later. I tried to take advantage of having a couple of nights here by doing my washing, but this plan was foiled when the girl at reception revealed they'd run out of washing powder. Disaster! I'd so far got by by buying these indvidual sachets and avoided having to lug it round with me and following this I ended up with 40 sachets - equivalent to a kilo of washing powder, to fit in my (already overflowing) rucksack. I immediately took advantage of this by selling one to a guy in my dorm for 80c. My roomates in Noosa were good fun - Charlotte (kiwi) and Emelie (swedish) who were both studying adventure tourism in Nelson, Alfredo (italian) and Matt, who Rob, the older guy in our room, took great delight in telling me about. He'd recently spent 5 weeks in hospital in Thailand after a snake bite that left him with necrotising fasciitis that could have cost him his leg, if not his life. I was fascinated by the whole thing but tried to explain to Matt it was professional interest! After the free - for good reason - dinner, and the supplementary dinner I had to buy myself to fill my stomach up, I dragged the others to the hostel bar which was supposed to be the best (or maybe only?) place to go out in Noosa. On the way home we bumped into Xavier and Pat - the spiral faced, ex Bath guy from Kroombit, and went with them to the beach where another of the oz bus guys from Kroombit (Danny) played the guitar - really well! - and sang. All good fun, but it felt like a less good idea when I had to get up early in the morning to go to Steve Irwin's Australia zoo.

The zoo was in one word, bizarre. My main motive for going was to hold a koala, something that can't be done in other states like NSW, so I had to take advantage of it in Queensland. Luckily I managed to do this, I also managed to break my camera for the second time, after trying to climb down off a ledge where I'd been perching to take a photo over a wall of a tazmanian devil. It wasn't even a good photo! Everything else in the zoo was a bit disney, especially the show in the "crocoseum" which was entertaining enough, but nothing on the crocodile farm I'd been to just south of Cairns. There was no chance this guy was going to get his hand bitten off! I quite enjoyed the tiger show though, where the handler would dive into the pool followed by a tiger cub and they would play fight for a while. I also loved the koala demo - they don't really demo anything, they just sit and if you're lucky munch some eucalyptus, but I learned about KIDS - koala immune deficiency syndrome - which is threatening to wipe out koalas across Queensland. I made a mental note to learn more about this, then headed for the gift shop to be horrified -as I had planned to be - by the quantity of Bindi merchandise. Its all very strange...
The last night in Noosa was filled with a toga party in the hostel bar, then I jumped back on the Oz bus for a long day heading down to Byron Bay. When we finally got there there were only two of us (me and Gabi) staying at the hostel I'd booked - The Arts factory. Its fairly well known in the area for its quirky design and is full of hippys and arty types. The ultimate room is the teepee but unfortunately that was full so I go a shed like room instead, full of cobwebs and which had dubious lockers that were not particularly secure. I counted myself lucky though as Gabi's room didn't even have a door! The few days in Byron Bay were spent wandering round the town, sitting on the beach and generally relaxing with Gabi and Erin, who we met in Gabi's dorm. There was an overwhelming presence of "schoolies" in the town, it being the week after they all finished school and Byron being a popular destination for them. This was pretty annoying but it was quite entertaining to see them acting very young and stupid! It rained a lot of the time so rather than doing the lighthouse walk as I'd intended we played piggy in the middle in the hostel pool and then drank lots of tea in the common room. I was definitely in wind down mode after being travelling around so much and looking forward to getting to Pete and Kathryn's in Sydney.
The drive to Sydney is split into two days as its such a long way, with a stop over at surf camp on the way. I'd really been looking forward to this since my lesson last year and had a great couple of hours splashing around on my learner board! managed to stand up a fair amount, although the waves were not the most challenging! The staff laid on an amazing meal which we all really needed and afterwards we sat and listened to Danny (from our group) and one of the Canadian staff members - Brett - playing their guitars while a torrential rain storm happened outside! Brett was playing his own songs which were really good so we all ended up buying copies of his CD!
After a very long and rainy drive to Sydney (during which we actually had to pull off the road as there was so much water everywhere our driver couldn't see where she was going!) I arrived in the city. I was the last drop off at Central Station from where I caught a bus out to Clovelly to Pete's flat. I spent the next week being looked after by Pete and Kathryn, eating well and spending lots of time sorting stuff out on the internet. I didn't do a lot of touristy stuff as Arwa and I did lots last year and the weather wasn't great! I attempted to go swimming down at Clovelly beach which was quite successful and I did a really painful run around the eastern beaches to Bondi which hurt a lot more than I remembered from last time! On the wednesday afternoon I went to the Google Christmas /summer party with Pete which was lots of fun and I got to meet lots of his work friends. I also went into the office for the first time which was highly entertaining and looked like a strange cross between a playground and a student union - and not a lot like a workplace! On the friday it was really, really cold and rained all day. It took me until 2.30 to summon up the courage to leave the flat and try and do some shopping and when I did I only managed a couple of hours until I returned home like a drowned rat. Amazingly the next day the temperature doubled and there was bright sunshine, so we went across on the ferry to Pete's friend's birthday brunch in Neutral Bay and then to the beach at Balmoral where we swam and had fish and chips. In the evening we went into the city for another friend's birthday which I really worried about as I only had flip flops which are banned in lots of smart (pretentious) places in Sydney but luckily we were allowed in! The next morning I packed up my stuff and went to the airport with Pete to fly to Fiji!