After Port Macquarie i took the greyhound bus up to Coffs Harbour, a few hours North and another sleepy beach town. With better surf the area is popular with surfers but there really isn't much going on in the town. I spent 3 nights at the YHA which was the best hostel i've been in so far. I met quite a few people here, all of them moving on to Byron around the same time and a few staying at my next hostel too. I spent a bit of time around the town itself which is small but had some nice little trinket shops. The beaches were lovely a usual with a creek running from the sea inland. Clear water and shallow meant it was lovely and warm to have a swim in. The weather was really uncomfortably warm however so most of the time was spent lying around on the beach reading or in the pool, what a hard life....

I moved onto Byron Bay on the 9th January. Byron Bay is a very popular destination with both backpackers and Australians. The surf is brilliant here so it attacts a lot of people, often for a long time. There's a fairly large town covered in surf shops, souviner shops, tour agents, and of course a pub on every corner. The beach is 5 minutes from both my hostel and the town centre. It feel very much like a holiday resort here which is very busy. I went to the infamous Cheeky Monkeys, a bar on the outside of town in which competitions, cheap drinks and good music lead to a night of dancing on the tables. There's endless places to go on a night out so needless to say i've had to try most of them! I've met up with people i met in both Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour along with running into people i met in Melbourne and those i know from my first week in Sydney. So random how you bump into people you've met or someone who knows friends of a friend.

Byron Bay is home to the most easternly point in Australia, landmarked by a small lighthouse placed high on the clifftop. Byron is surrounded by beautiful beaches and rolling hills covered in trees, easy to see why so many people like it here. Up on the easternly coast it is extreamly peaceful and beautiful to look back over the beaches and town, however it is definitely too touristy for me to want to stay here any longer.

After walking up to the lighthouse around the coast the following morning a few of us (one who luckily had a car) drove up to the lighthouse for 5am to watch the sunrise. Seen as the sun rises in the east and here with have the most eastenly point, the sunrise did not disapoint. Although a little cloudly the sky was so beautiful, pinks and yellows streaming across the sky. Behind me stoof the lighthouse shadowed in darkness and reflected by the moon. Very surreal but an unfortgetable experience.

After a disasterous first attempt at surfing in Sydney i thought i'd give it another go, after all i am in one of the most popular surf destination on the east coast....however i was as rubbish as the first time haha! I had a 2 hour lesson with around 10 others and 2 instructors. Couldn't stand up to save my life, i did a little better than last time as i didnt break anything but still failed miserably! I may just stick to body bording in the future.

My last day in Byron and a few of us took a day trip to Nimbin, about an hours drive in land of Byron Bay. Nimbin is known as the "weed" capital of Australia. The sale of weed is regulated and widely available up there in cookie form too! The journey to Nimbin itself was along several country lanes and surrounded in rolling green hills with shorter fatter trees covering them, very different to scenery i've been used to and reminded me very much of home. Some of the views really were breathtaking. We spent about 2 hours in Nimbin itself, it's a very small place with just the one main street. The shops themselves were brightly coloured and elaborate, with a very hippy feel to them. A few cafe's and shops with back alleys selling other amenities! Numbin also hosts Nimbin Museum, a place dedigated to the history of how Nimbin is now home to the land of weed...Later in the afternoon we drove to a little creek not far from Nimbin which had a small waterfall and rock pools. We spent the rest of the day jumping from the rocks into the water below the waterfall and some of the group got a little more chilled out.