Hello all from the VERY lovely and very sunny Byron Bay!! This place is absolutely beautiful!!! Brilliant white sand with crystal clear water,great shops, great food, great surf! All with a friendly laid back charm! (it does have a still thriving hippy commune just 20 mins away!!)

We came here from Coffs Harbour a couple of days ago and have really enjoyed ourselves. We spent a nice day on the beach today soaking up the sun, and swimming in the warm water.

When we last left you all we were still in Coffs. We had a really nice few days there. We went for a nice canoe trip up the creek, searching for wildlife - to no avail :(, we went mountain biking and walking through the forest and beside the creek (still searching for those elusive koalas - but we just could not find them anywhere!!!) We even tried going out at night with our flashy new headtorches that we bought for 4 pounds!!! what a bargain - and they are quite good too!!! We were trekking through, i wanted to find some animals and catch them, but Sarah was getting a bit scared so we had to turn back and go to the hostel (before the next thunderstorm!! - and we have had plenty of those!!!)

All in all we had a really nice time, and we even made a few friends from our hostel (we are meeting up with 2 of them to do Fraser island, which we have booked up).

We then got a train and coach up to Byron Bay (after pretty much phoning every single hostel in the whole of the town!! the place is absolutely full to the rafters!!) which took about 3 hours in all. When we arrived it was absolutely heaving!!! Every motel, hostel, campsite etc had a sign outside saying 'No Vacancies"!!!! The hostel we have got into looked really nice from the outside, unfortunately it was not quite as nice on the inside! but never mind - we had a bed!!

The next day was to you and I January the 10th, but to Sarah ..... HER BIRTHDAY!!!!!! I woke up before her (perhaps the first time in the whole trip) and presented her with my little homemade card (an absolute work of art, if i may say so myself!!) and wished her happy birthday. I then proceeded to make sure that she did not expect too much as we are both poor and we have not been apart for two months plus, so i could not get her a present.

We then hit the town for the first time in daylight, and browsed a few nice clothes shops for a new dress for Sar, but we couldnt find any. Next i saw the perfect present ....... Sarah also saw the sign and thought it would be a perfect early present for me ...... An Aboriginal Art Workshop 'paint your own didgeridoo, boomerang or canvas'. We both looked at each other and read each others minds.

We spent the whole of the afternoon painting our own aboriginal paintings (without much help from the resident artist ... he pretty much showed us the paints and brushes and went off skating and painting his own pictures [which to be fair were pretty amazing]). I think we spent the quietest 3 hours ever in that studio. The concentration was fierce, the talent oozed from our hands to the canvas. We didnt actually finish them that day but we came back the next day to finish them .... i must say they are both absolutely brilliant....ish! Seriously though, we were both really impressed, especially for anyone who knows the limits of my artistic capability!!!!

That night we went out and had a lovely meal, Sarah had gourmet fish and chips (a classic on this tour) and i had a thai stir fry (just preparing myself). Then we went out for a few drinks and bumped into the guys that we met back in Coffs, so we went for a few drinkies with them as well!

We havent done much tonight, just had a classy dominos pizza (where we saw Tara Reid walk passed us [the blond one from American Pie]) and tried to put some photos (mostly unsuccessfully) on the old website.

My Birthday tomorrow!!!!! My account number is 118.......

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