Woooo SUNSHINE! Pretty much as soon as we left Sydney the sun came out and it's been shining ever since, making me a little bit less tempted to get straight on a flight back to Asia, Oz is slowly growing on me! I've started my East coast adventure now with Oz experience, finally managing to catch the bus on Wednesday (I woke up at 3am just to make sure I caught the 6am bus, there was no way I was missing it this time!) and headed off to Spot X, a surf camp. They're pretty big on the partying over there so we got straight on the wine and spent the night playing drinking games and doing some beach stargazing (there are MILLIONS of them over here, never seen that many stars before!) fun times.

Next morning was surfing time. I was feeling a bit fragile and not that keen to get into some freezing cold water to be beaten up by the sea, but as it turned out I LOVED it! The water was warm, the sun was shining, the surf was good, pretty much perfect conditions. Obviously, I won't be becoming a pro surfer any time soon but I managed to stand up a few times at least, once I figured out that you actually have to catch the wave. It feels pretty awesome, I can see how half the Aussies are addicted.

We were sadly catching the bus to Byron Bay that afternoon but I would have loved to stay and do the 5 day course they offered. There were only 6 of us on the bus, which is a tiny amount seeing as the coaches are all booked up weeks in advance in Summertime, doesn't look like it's gonna be that social after all! The bus driver's pretty cool though. We stopped at some of the 'big things' that Australia has dotted around (strange country), like a giant banana and a giant prawn, as well as to visit a cliff viewpoint overlooking the biggest waves I have ever seen with some tiny little people surfing them. Then we got to Byron Bay and checked into the Holiday Village, which was conveniently located across the street to a bar called Cheeky Monkeys where we went for our first night.

This night happened to be their wet tshirt contest night. Oz experience passengers get ridiculously spoilt in this place, with free meals, free jugs of beer, free jagers, free champagne, etc etc etc. Although the Danish Oz experience guys sitting next to us didn't get half as much as us, funny that. Anyway three of the girls from the bus decided to enter the contest. They were trying to convince all six of us to do it and I was so close to being lured in with their 'oh you don't actually have to get your top off or anything' (lies), but luckily I got away with dignity sortof intact. The girl from my bus ended up winning it after a big boobfest where everyone just threw their tshirts away to the enjoyment of all the leery old men in the first row! Pretty amusing. We were gonna go to the beach with some guys from the hostel until we realised it was miles away so dived into the hostel pool instead which was nice and icy cold, resulting in a telling off by the manager and a pretty crap night's sleep shivering away with wet hair!

The next morning I'd convinced a guy called Mark from the night before and his friends to come with me on a tour to a town called Nimbin, which was included with Oz ex. As it turned out they managed to book onto a different bus than me and all that friend-making went to waste, damn. Nimbin is essentially a town that is pretty much entirely dedicated to getting high. It smells of weed, there's weed cookies being sold by nice old hippies all along the street, you get there on a rainbow coloured bus playing lots of songs about weed, and everything in town is painted in psychadelic paint with pictures of cannabis leaves everywhere. There's a nice museum with a million little slogans on how to lead a better life (peace and love of course), and lots of little shops where the shop owners pretty much let you help yourself and come find them if you fancy paying. It's so chilled out there, bit like stepping back to the 70s (probably). We had a nice time wandering around snacking on cookies before having a BBQ next to a dam and visiting a waterfall. Pretty good day all in all, even if I didn't actually manage to get high (think I'm immune?!).

This morning I got up at 4am to go see the sunrise with two girls from the Nimbin bus (Pip and Laura). The lighthouse viewpoint in Byron Bay is the most Easterly point in Australia so we were seeing the Sunrise first out of all of Oz. I met the girls at 5am after spending ages looking for them on a deserted beach in the pitch dark with the ocean roaring away which was quite a weird experience, then walked for an hour up to the lighthouse. The sunrise was pretty awesome, and I also managed to spot a whale, pretty lucky seeing as the whale season hasn't started properly yet. I was supposed to go kayaking with dolphins afterwards but it got cancelled cos the sea was too crazy, so I just spent today mooching around the beach. Was tempted to get a surfboard before I realised the ocean here is freezing cold even with the sun out, oh well.

I'm catching the greyhound bus at 6pm to Brisbane where I stay the night before setting off in the morning to get to Rainbow beach, where I set off for Fraser Island. I canny wait, the weather forecast looks amazing and everyone goes on about how good this trip is.... so watch this space!