Left Brisbane for Byron Bay, a notorious backpacker stop en route to Sydney. Only took about 4 hours on the bus including a prolonged services stop in another classy place... so after leaving at 10ish we arrived about 2pm. Walked a couple of hundred metres to Nomads Odyssey, a really cool hostel that was pretty much brand new with loads of lounge areas, internet, cool kitchen and swipe card access to everything! Had Room 101 (!) and met our roomies who seemed really good fun (an Aussie guy and two Canadian girls) - went to te supermarket to get a few bits and came back to find them already getting on the lash at 4pm! Rude not to join them.... so we partook in some lovely box wine and beers and by 7pm were pretty drunk but instead of taking the sensible option and making some food we continued on the box wine and went to the bottle-o opposite for more alcoholic supplies! Got ready to go out, made two new best friends when Allie and Cortney straightened my hair and glammed me up but in the meantime some shizzle had hit the fan and we had a prompt change of plans (quite literally all dressed up with no where to go!) Dan, Cortney and I decided to go and find some pizza having not eaten and needing something to soak up the wine and en route I thought it would be a really good idea to call my Dad at work and shout down the phone, then speak to Morgan too (sorry I made very little sense....xxx) Scoffed the Dominos that Dan presented like a knight in shining armour in about 4 minutes and then passed out in the bottom bunk......!

Unsurprisingly the following day (Tues 2nd June) I felt gross..... are you finding a recurrent theme here?! We had planned to go surfing but managed to postpone it to the following day thank god! However, we did have to be out the room by 10 as some bright spark thought it would be a great idea to get a man and drill into our room to fix something (seriously unconducive to hangover recovery) so we ventured to Main Beach, walked along in the sunishine and ended up at the lookout point where we climbed up for some awesome views and watched the surfers catch the waves (obviously taking tips for tomorrow haha!) Came back and managed some soup for lunch and chilled in the common room napping and reading all afternoon. The highlights of this evening included burnt chicken schnitzel for dinner, internet and cards..... one crazy night in! In our defence, our surfing had been rescheduled for 7.30AM the next morning, wanted to be at our physcial and mental best of course ;o)

Up seriously early for pick up by the Mojo surf bus! Rocked up full of spritely surfers and the spriteliest surf instructor... didn't quite know what to expect....! Especially as the others all tended to be on week or 3 day courses so had been in the waves before and not complete beginners like us! We drove 15 mins to a place just up from Byron Bay called Lennox Head - much more secluded, completely sandy with no rocks pebbles and other stoniness and with baby waves YAY! Got wet suited up (although Dan had to cope with a "rashie" as they didn't have a wetsuit big enough for the thunder thighs!) and given a board that we had to lug down to the beach (much easier said than done!) Had about 10 mins of preparation on the beach and 10 mins of jumping around like a loon to warm up and prevent muscles hurting (PAH!) before being thrown quite literally in the (not so) deep end. So we paddled out to the waves before attempting to turn the board around, get on it, paddle, watch the wave coming, push up on the board and stand up...again, easier said than done. Was more along the lines of...paddle out to waves, watch waves, jump over a few as fearful they are too big, try and turn board around but get a wave just at that moment and get smacked by board, eventually turn board around, scrabble up onto board, paddle (the only bit I could manage successfully!), look at wave, think "oh s***", paddle, push up, not get my feet into position in time, legs go akimbo (Bambi-esque of course) and fall in the sea head first with a mouthful of sea water. I swallowed ALOT of sea water, bashed my arse ALOT and even managed to wipeout when not on the board thanks to another pesky wave! Ended up being able to crouch, but lack of coordination and balance meant standing was not an option. Dan fared better with his general strength but problems with getting his weight centred through the board meant he was unsuccessful at remaining standing for any length of time! Really fun though and got given oranges at the end which helped a lot with the salty mouth and general sickness. By the time we got back to the hostel about 12 it had started to completely chuck it down with rain so we showered, had lunch and read/napped until 3. Ventured out for a walk to the lighthouse, apparently it has beautiful views all along the coast and even whales at times. However, with my muscles feeling like I had been run over and the sun making a very strong reappearance (we had taken no water) we decided after an hour of walking uphill to stop, admire the pretty amazing view and turn back around! Came back to chill in the common room for a bit before drinking and playing cards with Sean in the room. Met our new roommates too and got chatting and drinking for longer than we expected. The others left for the pub to watch the State of Origin match (big rugby league deal) so we speedily cooked spag bol before joining them at the Beach House. Met our other room mate and her friend and chatted for a bit (the girls waiting for the rubgy to finish!) before heading to Cheeky Monkeys, a late bar - basically a cheesy TGI-esque meat market!! I left the boys to it and went back to bed about 1 although ended up up all night being really ill :o( Dan was happily snoring away on the top bunk when I got up though so at least I had piece of mind that he had made it back OK!

Byron Bay was really good fun, really chilled and we met cool people so that made it even better. Just a good backpacker hangout although realised why it lived up to its hippie reputation fairly speedily with the number of complete stoners around!