13/01/09

The alarm went off at 5am and we knew it was time to get up and pack whatever wasn't in a bag into a bag again. It's starting to become a chore living out of a bag, constantly digging to the bottom to find stuff and squeezing it all back in again. I've just been living off the top layer for the past couple of weeks because I can't be bothered to dig further down. The girls were panicing that the guy that offered us a ride to the greyhound wasn't going to show, but bang on 5:40 he was there and we boarded the greyhound to Byron Bay. Spent the time on the greyhound reading and sleeping in the strangest position, woke up with a rather sore neck. We stopped off at a service station 45 minutes before reaching Byron, I found an apple and a banana for 75c, bargain. All the apples in Aus have rotten insides though so you can't eat the core. Pat got some massive bacon and egg bap.

We arrived in Byron Bay and got a free pick up to Backpacker Inn. When we were in the queue to check in some guy pushed in front of me, and he literally had his arse hanging out. It was worse than the classic Saunders ass crack in your face, I think if you were standing at the right angle you would have been able to see hole. He must have known how low they were but he just didn't do anything about it, what a cock! The hostel was really nice, it has a great pool, we got a 5 bed dorm with enough room for everyone to move about without bumping in to each other and tripping over bags like the last place, so we were happy with it. It is also located right on the beach, you just have to walk 30 seconds out the back garden, cross the railway line and you're there.

We walked in to town and went to Wicked Travel to ask about trips for Fraser Island and the Whitsundays. Because there were five of us they were really keen for our custom, but their offer just wasn't good enough, after a lot of moaning about how we had no money the boss came out the back and told us to name our price. Once we'd booked that we sorted out all our greyhound rides and accomodation until the end of January, then headed back to the hostel to make the most of the beach. The beach was awesome, the guys and I spent hours having crazy waves crash right on top of us, such hard work though as the rip pulls you to the left constantly, we ended up being swept like 100 metres down the beach and had to get out, run back and do it all over again.

As it was Burns' birthday we went out for a meal. Ended up finding an all you can eat pasta buffet in a hotel so decided to do that. We each had 2 giant plates of pasta, Burns and Helen managed to get the last portions of lasagne, I loved the carbonara, it was brilliant. Burns over did it and was uncomfortable and producing the most vile smells from both ends of his body for the next 2 or 3 hours. We sat in the bar where we ate and listened to some live music for about an hour then headed off to another bar and continued drinking there. We spent a good half hour wetting ourselves as we were getting photos of each other with the widest mouth pose, Helens lips had perished in the sun and she still managed to join in. The girls had had enough so went back home while we stayed out. We bumped in to some random people that were getting freaked out by some cockroaches and ended up going to a club called Cheeky Monkeys with them. We eventually managed to get them to do the wide mouth pose as well, one of the guys looked just like Napoleon Dynamite and danced no better than him. Some time later after we'd had enough gassy beers Burns and I went on to the Jam Jars, the first sip of them tastes just like syrup, apparently they have tequila, trip sec and rum in them, needless to say we got a little battered. The floor was rediculously sticky due to the amount of jam jar spillages and I nearly lost my thongs on several occasions. On the way back we saw a giant spider, believed to be a Huntsman, it was HUGE!

14/01/09

Woke up fairly early and went to the beach. The others showed up a bit later and we all just read our books and enjoyed the sun. In the afternoon we went in to town and wandered around the shops, we had a few final greyhounds to book and dates to check so we popped in to wicked travel again. Burns and I forgot our greyhound sheets so we had to walk all the way back to the hostel and back in to town again, my foot was killing by the time we got back. When we'd done we all wandered around more shops, I went to get my hair cut and accidently walked in to a massage centre, the hair dressers were shut, so I went back to the hostel. Some guys were trying to do gainer backs into the swimming pool unsuccessfuly, so I showed them how to do it, they didn't seem very happy. The girls got back and had bought tickets for us to eat at the BBQ the hostel was putting on. We played cards in the garden excitedly waiting for a feast from the BBQ. It was nothing compared to the BBQ at Coffs Harbour, we were only allowed 2 slices of bread, they didn't even have buns and we were all repremanded for attempting to take 3. We only had 1 grissle burger, 1 sausage and some rancid salad each, what a let down. As none of us were full we walked back in to town to try and find something else to eat. We went from only spending $5 each for the night to spending another $12 on a Dominos each. We spent the rest of the evening coming up with ingenious ways of stopping cockroaches getting in to our left over pizza over night.

15/01/09

I woke up nice and early and went to reception to hire a surf board at 8am. I had to leave my drivers licence and debit card with the receptionist in case I broke the board which made me a little worried. I had a choice of boards so I went for the largest, a 7'7", to give me more chance of standing up. went to the beach and got straight in the sea, the waves were looking good nice and big, but not so big that they'd wipe me out. The first wave I got I managed to stand up straight away and ride it all the way in to shore. It's so much easier on a bigger board, so much more fun. I spent the next 3 hours in the water getting better at it each time. I decided to go out further after 2 hours to get bigger waves that were crashing further out, on my first attempt at getting out a huge wave crashed right on top of me, the board spun round and the fins stabbed me right in the side. My second attempt was a little more successful, I managed to get out there although when a wave came I had to rush get in position and I was too far forward on the board so the wave flipped me face first into the board. Third attempt I managed it and got a huge wave all the wave, it felt awesome. I returned the board at 11 and then we all sat in the hammocks in the garden reading, I was shattered and must have nodded off. woke up at about 1 and we went back in to town to wander around the shops and use the free internet in WickedTravel, we each got an ice cream on the way. Burns has been wanting some hideous shorts for some time now and for some reason chose today to get them. He showed up with the brightest plain yellow luminous board shorts I have ever seen, they look ridiculous. Pat then decided he wanted some shorts as well and ended up getting some full priced quicksilver ones, the crazy b******. Burns and I got some Byron Bay T-shirts and then went back to the beach. The wind was so strong though, by the time we had put our towels down they were covered in sand, and because Burns can only seem to lay on his front he kept getting a mouthfull of sand so we decided to lay in the garden instead. Bad choice, we were both instantly sweating about as much as we were in Thailand, we managed to survive for half an hour, then we both had to have a shower.

Pat and Helen went for a meal while Coops cooked a curry for Burns and I. For some reason this hostel requires you to put a $5 deposit on a plate with cutlery and there weren't any available. So we spent the whole time Coops was cooking cleaning out tupaware that we had saved since the Chinese take out we had in Newcastle to eat out of. It was the best curry I've had in ages, well done Coops, although eating it with a plastic fork was a bit awkward. We then decided to hire out Pictionary from the reception and sat outside playing it for ages. We had some really good ones, I got Burns' collinder, and Coops' Platypuss pretty much the moment they put pen to paper. Burns really can't draw to save his life, his picture of a bed looked like a cottage with a chimney. Some of them were really frustrating, I was drawing a desk and they were both shouting out loads of variations of table, like table-cloth, table-leg. Pat and Helen returned from their meal and had a good moan about how they had to sit next to each other at the table because there wasn't enough room, and that the couple they were sat near were really moody and wouldn't make conversation, they seemed to enjoy themselves though.