We got up and headed to the bus station to get the bus to the airport. We were like zombies carrying our big backpacks; tired was an understatement. When arrived at the airport and boarded our flight.

As soon as the plane started taking off, it was swaying from side to side on the runway. We were all worried thinking that wasn't a good sign! About 5 minutes later on take off, when we had left the ground, there was a massive bang and a big flash of light. We were like oh my god... What the #!&@ was that?!!! Straight after that the plane started shaking and going up & down. We thought something had blown up and there was something wrong with the plane! We were preparing ourselves to crash and die. Literally. We were petrified. A whole 5 minutes passed without a word said to us (this seemed like the longest 5 minutes of my life!) and then the pilot came on the tanoy... "Hello everyone, this is the pilot. You may have heard a big bang and seen a big flash back there... (big pause)... I can confirm that we were struck by lightning (massive pause again)... We have protection on the airplane to protect us from these incidents. We have checked to see if everything is working properly... the front of the plane is fine... (huge pause)... And the back of the plane is too. Phew!! I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life! The rest of the flight was a horrible journey. I literally couldn't wait to get off the plane!

When we arrived in Sydney it was such a relief. We had a day in Sydney before getting our first Premier bus to Byron Bay in the evening, so we dropped our bags off at the travel agents and headed to our favourite place, Darling Harbour, to have a little nap! It was a scorching hot day; even the shade we were sweating buckets (nice, I know!).

We got on the Premier bus at 7pm to Byron Bay. It was a long overnight bus. We thought we'd said goodbye to those in Asia!