Hi Everyone!

After we last wrote we had a long night on the airport floor sleeping as we couldn't really afford to spend another night at the hostel! Our flight left at 6am in the morning and was a short burst over to Aus. We arrived into Melbourne around 8am & found our way to our hostel which was in a surburb of Melbourne called St.Kilda. St.Kilda is known for being quite grungy and a little bit different, which we both enjoyed. It had a cute little beach (altho it wasn't that hot) and we hired a couple of bikes and cycled along the beach front. Melbourne city itself was cool, just another city! Ce did the Neighbour's tour down Ramsay St which she really enjoyed.
On our last morning in Melbourne we made the trek up to the rental hire place to pick up our campervan - we were a little disappointed as it was a lot smaller than the one we hired in NZ & had manual gears which means that we can't just sit back and relax! We set off to Sydney and arrived that evening after a long day driving. Because Sydney it such a big city it doesn't have anywhere to stay with a campervan in the city so we ended up staying in a place outside of Sydney & having to get the train in which took about 15mins. We met up with Elliot (Ru's boyfriend) and his brother Tom & their friend Dafydd for 3 days, in which time we went to Bondi Beach, the Opera House, Darling Harbour & all sorts! We also managed to get to the Mardi Gras parade on Sat evening .... the gay and lesbian festival, where the participants dress outrageously to express their sexuality and parade up and down Oxford Street playing music and "expressing" themselves. Around 35,000 people go to watch so it was a bit of a squash but we managed to get some good pictures.
On Sunday Ru & Elliot said their goodbyes and we left to go to Byron Bay. The weather on the way up was AWFUL (heavy driving rainstorms and wind), we finally arrived around 2am. The next day we pottered around the town which is really nice and friendly, quite a small town with LOADS of backpackers and cute shops and restaurants. We stayed in a campsite on the beach which was nice. Yesterday we both took a 4hr surfing lesson which was great and now we are both professional surfers as i am sure u can imagine! There was also a dolphin swimming right next to us while we were riding the waves which was awesome. Today we are heading up to Surfer's Paradise near the Gold Coast where we will probably spend a couple of days. We promise to put some more pictures on soon!

Love you lots!

Ru & Ce xxxx