Hi all,

Having now officially left Queensland, we lost yet another hour of our lives, making us now 11hrs ahead of the UK. We arrived in Byron Bay early evening and got checked into the most expensive hostel yet ($30 a night!), which was actually really nice and took an immediate liking to the place. Having had a restrained past few nights and after bumping into a few old faces from other stops (Clare and Sam from Magnetic Island and Helen from Airlie Beach), we decided to have a night ooot and visited the ever classy, 'Cheeky Monkeys'. A cross between the Woolshed and the lovely 'Walkabout' in Manc, we drank jugs of beer and watched on as classy girls got up for the cowgirl/come rodeo/come excuse to lose your clothes-fest to make complete and utter fools of themselves for a prize of 100 bucks!! Classy. It was no Spearmint Rhino that's for sure.......

The morning was a bit of a blur, Becki explore the town (so I found out later). I opted to stay recovering. When she returned she had brown hair! We had a quiet evening and made the most of our final day by getting an early night and booking on to the 'Sunrise Lighthouse Tour' of Cape Byron. The alarm went off at 4.30am, and by 5am, we'd been driven up in the mini-bus and were by the Lighthouse, waiting for the sun to rise. We watched as it popped over the horizon, slowly creeping up behind the hazy morning clouds. By the time the whole sun was visible, the sky was glowing a magnificent pinky orange colour and the sea before it glowed brightly.

By 6am, we were tucked back in our beds and didnt emerge until about 9.30am. A quick pack of the bags in order to check out by 10am and then we slung them in storage and had breaky.

As our bus to Sydney wasn't leaving until 8.55pm, we spent the day on the beach - after going via a shop where Becki spent more money. I got his hair cut and let the stylist go wild - its different! Then we got showered and ready for the evening journey. Oh and I've just remembered that we had issues with so locals. Minding our own business and talking to the Ozzie guy we had just met talking about the cricket, an Abo came and sat next to us. Surprisingly, absolutely off his nuts! and start talking to us and welcoming us to his country and wishing us a merry xmas etc etc. Five or ten minutes later he is still there slurring away about this and that and his heavily pregnant Aboriginal lady comes from no where and start a scene. Yelling that Becki is a wh*re and is this your new bi*ch and we are just sitting there thinking what the hell?!?!? Then she starts tipping all the drinks on the table over, it was going to proper kick off so we were advised to move on. Lovely!!

Byron is a quality town. It's full of Hippies and lots and lots of surfers , along with hoards and hoards of backpackers - but I liked it! We boarded the bus and tucked down for the 13hr journey down the coast. It's scary to think that we've travelled for over 40hrs, covering more than 4 times the length of Great Britain over the last 2 months and still, we're only in Sydney. The size of Oz is totally unbelievable.

Bye for now

Miffy x x x