After a 13 hour coach journey, we arrived in Byron Bay at about 7am. When we got there we were greeted by a few people representing different hostels in Byron. We found out which one Rick was staying at (the one with the fittest representative lol) and were taken there in a mini bus. We checked ourselves in to a 6 bed dorm and went to check out the town.

Byron is a pretty small place. There are a few shops and restaurants, a subway (of course) a supermarket, cinema etc. After seeing the town we headed to a social club round the corner because it started to rain, and had some beers, played some pool and shuffled some cards. It was there that we waited for Luke and Nick. After a couple of hours the two of them arrived and the atmosphere increased tenfold. Now there were 8 Brighouse boys living it up in Australia!

Luke and Nick got checked in and we all headed towards the beach. For the most part we jus sun bathed, played footbal, swam and had a bash on some body boards. With Byron being a small town, there wasn't loads to do, so we spent most of our time at the beach during the day. The weather began to get much much better, which in turn added to everyones high spirits. On an evening the main event was a restaurant/party bar called cheeky monkeys. Each night they had some deal on where you can get cheap food so we made the most of this and ate there. The food was really good and the portions were massive, and we usually stayed there afterwards for a few frothy bevvies, as it was the place to be in Byron. It wasn't amazing lol but it was as good as we were gonna get so we enjoyed it all the same.

After we'd had a few jugs we were all dancing on the tables and taking part in the little party games they had going. Met some pretty cool people and some weirdos lol but all in all we had a proper good time.

The highlight of our stay in Byron was Jim's Alternative Tour to Nimbin. Nimbin is this little hippy village about 40 minutes from Byron, where you can get your hands on all sorts of things, namely cookies or CAKES with alternative ingredients. If you still dont know what were on about we mean space cakes lol. So we took this bus tour with a load of other people, not really knowing what to expect. Jim played music throughout the tour, and timed each song perfectly to the raod distance we covered. For example he would start a song and it would finish exactly as we pulled up to the next rest stop.

When we got to Nimbin we were given a couple of hours to look around and purchase whatever delicasies we could find. Jim told us that there is a historic music culture which revived Nimbin as a town. This culture brought with it a flood of herbal tendancies, which seemed to worry the police. However, a law was passed giving New South Wales police discretionary powers, whereby they could turn a blind eye to any drug use if they wanted. This has made Nimbin a center for getting high without the worry of getting arrested.

We thought it would be a good idea to, literally, taste the culture, so invested in some cookies. Words can't really describe the experience we had that day, but we are all agreed it was one of the strangest/funniest/best days of the trip so far. We strongly recommend the cookies in Nimbin!

After 3 or 4 days in Byron things became a little mundane, and we decided to head up to Surfer's Paradise (Gold Coast), which is the home of Nicky B! With our minds set on beautiful beach babes and a thriving community we hopped on the coach and travelled a couple of hours up the coast to Surfer's. Untill next time....