After making a hasty retreat from Nimbin we changed our minds about free camping just outside, we just wanted to get as far away from the place as we could!! We chose to stay in Ballina for one night which is just south of Byron Bay. We are glad we did it was a lovely peaceful little place and we had a lovely walk along the promenade there and just relaxed and took full advantage of the showers!!

Next we went up to Byron Bay, we werea bit apprehensive about going to Byron as we were warned by numerous grey nomads about the infamous 'schoolies week' which is actually about a month long. Basically all the school leavers around oz flock to the gold coast and as the grey nomads described created sheer bedlam and caused riots. So we were wondering how bad it could be, we imagined the caravan park we were going to stay in to be like the last night at reading festival....gas canisters being thrown on bonfires, drunk teenyboppers spewing everywhere etc.... Anyway we got to Byron and it was lovely lovely lovely!! There were a few teenyboppers walking around but they were quite respectable, and our caravan park, despite having an entrance like a maximum security prison was also quite quiet. Byron has a lovely atmosphere and has a gorgous beach with mountains in the distance. There were loads of little cafes and travelly beady shops everywhere. We both felt really relaxed and had a good few days just chilling out. We walked up to the lighthouse twice and caught a cracking sunset over the hills...bliss!

We thought we would head up a bit more north after Byron to Tweeds head which is on the NSW/QLD border. This is the Gold coast and it was the most high rises we've seen in Oz so far, it had a bit of a Benidorm feel to it. Lots of high rise hotels squashed together right up to the beach. We didnt really like it that much but we did spend a few days up here and went to a massive shopping centre only to window shop unfortunately!!!

We then headed down to Ballina again via Byron, we were a bit undecided on what to do, we were going to take it really easy and just go down the NSW coast towards Sydney but then we thought we are so close to Brisbane we may aswell go there and then at least we will have been to all the major cities on mainland Oz. So a few days after relaxing in Ballina we drove up to Brisbane, just had 2 days there. We got the bus into the city and it poured with rain, must admit we didnt get that much out of Brisbane!!!

We then moved onto the glasshouse mountains just north of Brisbane, we thought we would go to Australia Zoo, our trusty lonely planet assured us that we could justify the entrance fee so we queued up to go in and then both went CRIKEY when we found out the entrance fee was double what it had said in the lonely planet!! We went in anyway and had a great time, got to cuddle a Koala, saw crocs, alligators, tigers, snakes and other critters! We went into the crocuseum and watched a big croc being fed which was quite scary! We watched some elephants for ages, they were really mesmerising!! Spent the night in a really skanky caravan park with mice everywhere!!!

We then had a bit of a drive further north to Hervey Bay, we stayed in a lovely caravan park and got surrounded by ducks!!! One duck in particular came right up to us and just stared at us for ages, he seemed completely mesmerised by us he was so gorgous!!! He even tried to follow me to the loo!!! Anyway we wondered around Hervey Bay and had a smoothie near the beach and watched a possum running down the street!! We treated ourselves to a load of VBs as it was hot and maybe drunk a bit too much!!

Next stop Fraser Island!!!