This morning I woke up and Leander and Debbie's van had moved from the street where we had parked up, but they had left a note under my wiper saying that they had moved to the park nearby as they needed some more space so that they could empty out their van and give it a clean out. Their van was due to be returned today and they had a flight from Brisbane airport down to Sydney, and I had offered to follow them back to the hire company to return their van and then drop them off at the airport saving them the need to book a taxi or get a bus.

I moved my van around to the park and joined them.

Leander told me that earlier that morning that a man in his 50’s had come out of his house and walked over to them at their van (which was parked on the street close to the man’s house), instantly he thought the same as me, that the man was going to say something about being parked outside is house all night and maybe report us to the police, but instead he surprisingly said:-

 "I know what it’s like to travel around Australia in a van as I have done it myself. I am just popping out to the shops and will be back in around 2 hours, if you like I will leave my door open and you can go in and use my shower if you would like to."

As you can imagine, this was not what we were expecting, and although we were very grateful of the offer, we did feel a bit weird about going in to a stranger’s house to use their shower especially as they were not even going to be there. We declined the offer but thank you very much!!!

Once Leander and Debbie had cleaned out their van, they got their paperwork out and I entered the address in my SATNAV and we set off to return their van. I needed to go to the hire company too as I wanted to ask them if it was possible for me to keep my van for a few extra days so that I could drive down to Sydney and drop it off down their instead of waiting in Brisbane for 2 days and returning it here.

It was a good job that I had my SATNAV as we would never have found the hire car company as it was out in the middle of nowhere, but we managed to find it OK. They asked if we were both returning our vans but I said that mine wasn’t due back for a couple of days and that I wanted to extend my rental period for a couple of days. She said to me “are you sure, we were expecting you yesterday”

So I went out to my van and grabbed my paperwork to check. Whoops! I should have returned my van yesterday, I was sure it was due back on the 11th and not the 8th. Maybe I should have checked my paperwork earlier but I guess the hire company must get this all the time.

I asked to take van for another 2 days and to go to Sydney with it and drop it off there and also to pay the extra day that I was late for and it wasn’t a problem. They updated my hire agreement and gave me the address in Sydney where I had to return my van to and I actually got these 3 extra days cheaper as I didn’t have to pay the 20% agent commission and therefore got the van for around $52 per day instead of the $64 per day that I had been paying.

Once we were all sorted at the hire car company, the 4 of us headed out to get something to eat and we ended up at Dominoes pizza and Leander and Debbie insisted on paying for me as they wanted to say thanks for the lift to the airport. We ate up, and I dropped them off at the airport and we said our goodbyes.

From Brisbane airport I headed down to Byron Bay, where after a walk around the town and along the beach I got a call from Doreen who was also here in Byron Bay. We agreed to meet up at her hostel and headed off to the Byron Bay lighthouse as it was quite far out of town it was too far for Doreen to walk yesterday when she got here.

The history of Byron Bay lighthouse.....

Cape Byron Light is an active lighthouse located at Cape Byron, New South Wales, Australia. The cape is the easternmost point of the mainland of Australia, located about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) northeast of the town of Byron Bay. It is Australia's most powerful lighthouse, with a light intensity of 2,200,000 cd.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Byron_Light

On our return from the lighthouse we headed to the supermarket for some supplies for dinner. We ended up buying food to cook Spaghetti Bolognaise which I cooked for us in my van back at the campsite that I had booked in to earlier.

After dinner Doreen and I agreed to meet up early in the morning so that we could go back to the lighthouse at sunrise for some more pictures and also as we both wanted to go to visit the Blue Mountains, near to Sydney and I offered to drive her there and we could get going straight from the lighthouse. In order to be up in time for sunrise, I agreed to pick Doreen up at 05:30.

While Doreen walked back to her hostel and I rang Mum to catch up on some of the news back home and also to fill her in on my plans for my next few weeks in Australia.