Whilst in Sydney we decided that me, Ady, Ryan and a friend of his from back home Sarah would do a little road trip up the east coast of Australia as far as Cape Tribulation. We had to wait for Ryan to finish his job at Diagio then we were to set off around the 4th November.
The original plan was to get a relocation camper van and see the coast that way as it's cheaper and would be more fun, but it wasn't to be as there were no relocations to cairns on the dates we wanted. We decided to book the Greyhound coach up to Byron Bay and see what happened from there. We all met up at the coach station and set off on a 12 hour bus journey to Byron Bay. It was a very tiring journey for us all especially when the bus stops every 3-4 hours for half an hour at a time! On the second stop it was around 4am and as we stepped out of the service centre Sarah said I wonder if we will see many kangaroos on the way and just as the words left her mouth we saw three kangaroos on the grass nearby which was our first kangaroo sighting since being in Australia!
We arrived in Byron to rain which was not the best start but we instantly knew we were going to like it there. We checked in to a hostel which was 2 minutes from the beach and went for a walk to check it out straight away. Even though it was raining there were lots of people around and people learning to surf in the sea which was great!
We decided that day to go and book a surf lesson for the following day. We booked with black dog surf school which actually has a dog that goes surfing with the students however he was on a day off when we were to learn the next day.
Our lesson was first thing the next day and I was a little apprehensive about learning especially after not being in the sea yet in Australia and the talk of sharks all the time! The lesson actually went really well and we were all up on the board within the first 10 minutes of being in the sea, I even surprised myself that I could get up and surf a wave!!
We stayed in the sea for a good 2 hours practising and had a really good time although I think we had all had enough by the end of the two hours especially the girls, me and Sarah looked like drowned rats!
That night we decided to celebrate our surf lesson by buying a box of goon (cheap vino in box!) and visiting the popular cheeky monkey backpacker bar. We had a good night and all ended up pretty drunk dancing on the tables and singing our hearts out!
The next day we decided to get some of our trips booked for the rest of the trip and ended up booking Fraser Island and Whitsundays sailing trip which we were all really excited about!
We stayed in Byron for 3 nights and really love the atmosphere of the place and the beach of course but it was time to leave to set off for our next destination of Brisbane.
We only had 2 nights to spend in Brisbane which was a shame as it looked like a really nice city but we were on a tight schedule after booking our trips so didn't leave much time for Brisbane. The first day we looked around the city and spent some time with another friend of Ryan's called Jess who he had met in Perth. The next day me and Ady went to visit my relatives who I haven't seen in about 15 years. Their names our Stella and Ken and they are my great Auntie and Uncle.
Stella and Ken live on the outskirts of Brisbane so we got a bus down to the shopping centre were they picked us up to take us round to their house. Stella had made us a salad dinner and had baked us a quiche which was really nice. We had a good catch up and learnt more about Australia and also how talented Ken is with building and making furniture and what it was like for them to live there compared to the uk which was interesting. Then after a few hours of organising on the phone which was quite funny we finally arranged to go to Gordon and Shauna's house for a meal. Gordon is Stella and Kens son and Shauna is Gordon's wife. They also have three children, who are 15, 18 and 24.They were also kind enough to invite Ryan and Sarah for dinner also which was very kind of them. Gordon decided to take us wine tasting while the meal was being prepared and it turned out he was a bit of a connoisseur! It's great in Australia they have bottle shops everywhere which are pretty big like a warehouse and every Friday they have free wine tasting so we went to 2 different warehouses and each tried about 30 different wines which was fun! I think allot of the people shopping in the store though Gordon was a staff member as he was telling us all about each and every wine and what it tastes best with etc and people were coming up to him asking him advise and where the wines were in the warehouse which was really funny especially after 30 tastes of wines!
After each buying a bottle of our favourite wine we had tasted we went back to Gordon's for the meal. Shauna had cooked an amazing 3 course Italian meal which was delicious and Stella and Ken also came around which was nice. Gordon is a famous artist in Australia so after the meal he showed us a lot of his artwork which was amazing and had some good stories to tell us all! We got back to the hostel around 12:00pm and got our heads down before we left for Noosa the next day.