We booked a greyhound bus ticket all the way up the East coast, we thought it was a brilliant idea that the bus ticket is flexible and you can hop on and off the bus as and when you like as long as you don't go over your mileage. We turned up at the bus station an hour early as usual (Lisa still insists on being there very early after missing the bus in Florianopolis 2 months ago) and found lots of people hanging around waiting for the bus. A bus arrives and everyone runs toward the bus, being English and too polite we hang back a bit whilst the Scandanavians push each other about. Lisa eventually finds out that 4 buses are going North and no one knows which bus they should be on so its a case of asking each driver whether you belong on his bus whilst he looks through his list for your name. Eventually we find our bus and realise no seats are reserved so everyone is fighting to get on the bus so that they can sit together. Our views on this brilliant 21st century transport system have gone out the window! Then we get on the bus, "oh no", no semi-cama reclining seats, no movies??? Are we in Beirut??? Even Bolivia was posher than this!!!

Everyone travels up the East Coast after New Years Eve in Sydney therefore all accommodation up the coast is fully booked, we spent hours looking for a hostel with no luck and Ben eventually got through to a rental agency that had a campervan available for 3 nights, brilliant we booked it! We picked up our Campervan and drove in to Byron bay (bypassing Woolworths to fill up the fridge) to spend the afternoon on the beach! We tried to find a campsite for the night but they were all fully booked or far too expensive so we got a shower at the beach showers and parked up in Woolworths car park, which was to be our home for the night. Earlier in the evening Ben booked himself on to a surf lesson and the lady in the shop gave us the key to the public toilets for the night and we gave her the keys back the following day, very nice lady! On the night we went for a few drinks and saw some people sat in a park playing music and giving away free pancakes, of course we went over to find out more. There was a group of people from the Christian youth groups giving away pancakes, bands playing and people dancing. Lisa got herself a huge pancake and they we headed off to some of the bars, Byron has some really trendy bars we liked the beach hotel bar right on the beach front. At 6am Lisa woke to some random noises from some birds wandering around Woolworths car park and some annoying man cleaning the walkways, so we drove the camper van round to the beach front where you can park from 5am without being fined and went back to sleep for a few hours. Lisa spent the rest of the day on the beach chilling our whilst Ben went for his surf lesson! Ben surf lesson went reasonably well, by around halfway through a 3-hour lesson he was standing up around 50% of the time and by the end, standing up and riding the wave almost every time. Mind you, they weren't exactly monstrous waves, probably 3 feet! Byron's beach is lovely and the water was remarkably clean for such a busy place which is good to go in but not brilliant for swimming because of the surf waves.

We booked ourselves on a trip to the Whitsundays and Fraser Island today which meant that by the time we were finished in the tour agency the shower block at the beach was closed this meant we had to get showers at the outside showers at the edge of the beach and the road, such classy travellers! We spent the next 2 nights sleeping in Woolworths car park but without a toilet key which meant a trip to the toilet meant driving the van to the nearest public toilet 5 minutes down the road, not a good idea in the middle of the night! The next 2 days spent in Byron were all about relaxing and chilling out on the beach, heaven! We really enjoyed Byron and thought it was a pretty place, but a little over-rated,there were lots of other little beaches that were better around the same area, but Byron had the reputation and hype meaning it was massively crowded, time to move on again!!!