So what have I been up to since I last wrote??? Well I have travelled all the way from cape tribulation in the north to Sydney in the south…

If you want to know more I guess I should inform you of my journey down. It has been a bazaar journey down, bus, walk, boat, camper and train. The camper was great fun, although a little small, they are relatively clean and quite new cars, the only problem is they are bright green and look ridiculous. There’s something to be said for driving around in a bright green and purple car that just says “mug me, I’m a traveler” but saying that all went well. The van gave us a great opportunity to see places that we ordinarily wouldn’t have seen. In fact probably some of the dullest looking places on the earth, which was nice. We did however get to go to a mango winery. Now mango wine, as the sales lady told us, is the same as normal wine but offers a different and unique flavor. And it certainly was unique and left me feeling like perhaps I can see why mango wine isn’t taking the world by storm.

Other than that I’ve had an amazing time trying to navigate the highways and scary little dirt roads of Australia’s east coast, the one thing I have been absolutely shocked by is the sheer size of this place. It is huge! Just to put it in perspective from Cairns to Brisbane it is the equivalent of driving from London to Moscow! After that huge distance, I spent a great week enjoying the sights and sounds of Brisbane city, which I think I was definitely beginning to crave civilization. Brisbane is beautiful and has huge perfectly sculpted parks and lagoons.

After a week with my family in Brisbane we decided to travel down the sunshine coast, I can only assume the name is ironic as I did not see a lot of sunshine at all, to surfers paradise. After driving Rosie slightly crazy with my own personal indecisive, hap hazard I’m sure we’ll find somewhere to go eventually type of travel we found a great hostel right in the city. It’s nice staying in one place for a few days because you meet some great people, who always have loads of fantastic advice to give. Which leads me to my next 5 days of action packed fun. On the advice of huge amounts of people I’ve met all over Auz I booked on the Mojo surf camp trip leaving from Byron bay and heading to Sydney. I got to Byron bay late on Saturday afternoon, after an extremely long very uncomfortable bus journey. Again employing my hap hazard approach to travelling I managed to find the cheapest hostel in Byron, it also turns out it was the dampest place on earth, which made all my clothes smell delightful. The next day, a little damp, at 6 AM!!! I got on a bus and headed for 4 hours towards a Spot X campsite, which would be my home for the next few days. We had a nice small group of 8 people who were all lovely, great to talk too and I don’t think I could have wished for a nicer group to learn to surf with. It turns out Surfing is actually quite difficult, pictures to follow, I spent several hours a day in an extremely tight wet suit trying to stand up on a large piece of foam, and falling face first into waves, seaweed and sea sponges. Although it was really hard, and I’ve got huge blisters on my hands it was such a great experience, getting up on a surf board and riding a wave, some of which were 3ft (that’s right a whole 3ft tall), although I’d say most were around about a foot tall. It was amazing and I would definitely do it again and again and again. I didn’t even mind getting up at 6 am putting on a cold damp wet suit and trudging through the cold sand to try and surf. or having two hours sleep because you’ve had to listen to someone in the dorm having late night drunken shenanigans with a surf instructor (it’s not a fun experience). Or even after they have finished their exceptionally loud “getting to know each other”, and rather amusing critique of the experience (another story entirely) listening to that instructor then snore like a gutted wild bore, until you get out of bed and slap him in the face until he wakes up. None of that even dented my mood as it was truly amazing to be surfing first thing in the morning and watching the sun rise whilst you ride a sweet wave (apology for using the term “ride a sweet wave” it was a one off and will never happen again).

Now however away from the peace and tranquility of the beautiful beaches and I’m in Sydney, which is great as apparently I am staying at the worlds best hostel! Which is some claim as I think it’s akin to being the most attractive homeless man, or loosing a stone when you’re 35 stone over weight. I mean yes its nice but its still a hostel, and full of people who don’t really give a s*** and leave smelly pans and hundreds of cartons of gone of milk in the fridges. But I did have a great night the other night, going out with the Mojo surf group and being invited to a Mojo party and attempting to drink my body weight in free beer. Sydney however, is lovely and I’m looking forward to seeing more of it over the next few days.