So after an afternoon at the Sydney Aquarium we prepared for our overnight bus trip to Byron Bay by packing a dinner of delicious rotisserie chicken and bread and salad. As soon as we sat down on the bus at 7pm the driver made an announcement that nobody was allowed to eat any food on the bus and that our first meal stop would be at 11:30pm. We were sad. The bus contained some of the hardest chairs we’ve ever sat on in our lives and we woke up at regular intervals with various numb limbs including feet, arms and bum cheeks. We ate our picnic sitting outside a petrol station in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. It was not as delicious as we had hoped by that point.
We arrived in Byron Bay at 8am feeling sleepy and achey but a nice man was there to pick us up in a minibus so we didn’t have to walk the 500m to our hostel. As we were so early they told us to wait in the TV room until 10:30, where we sat on more uncomfortable chairs and got bitten about a million times by mosquitoes so vicious that Jen ended up with massive blisters on her legs. When we got into our room our new roommates were fast asleep so we quickly showered and headed out to the supermarket. After packing some lunch we walked down to the beach, stopping on the way to buy some beach towels and get told by the woman in the shop that we would probably burn after 10 minutes on the beach. She wasn’t exaggerating - it was hellishly hot, but beautiful. We had a swim in the sea and did a bit of sunbathing and actually felt like we were on a real holiday! Then we went for a few beers at a bar next to the beach and headed back to the hostel to cook dinner.
That night we decide to see what Byron Bay had to offer but after walking round an empty town and having one beer in a bar that looked like it was closing we headed back to the hostel. As we arrived back we met with our roommates and some Canadians who said they were going to the beach, so we went with them, drank a few beers, saw some people skinny-dipping, got sung to by drunk Germans and had fun times.
The following day we went to the pharmacy for some anti-histamine tablets for Jen as you could see her heart beating in her massive blister bites and it was rank. We spent the rest of the morning mooching round the shops and then went back to the beach in the afternoon for more swimming and sunbathing. In the evening we went out for dinner at a Greek restaurant and then had an early night. As you can see we did very little in Byron and it was really nice.
The following day we caught the bus to Surfers Paradise which thankfully only took about an hour and a half. Again a man in a minibus came to fetch us from the bus station and drive us to our hostel. Straight away we could tell that Surfers was a party town as the first thing he told us about was a massive bar crawl that was taking place that night and said it was “the best night in town”. When we arrived at the hostel we were over the bloody moon when they told us that they’d double booked the dorm beds and they were upgrading us, at no extra cost, to a private apartment! So for only $29 a night we had our own apartment with a double bedroom, our own bathroom and our own kitchen. There was another bedroom in the apartment and they kept saying that more people were coming but nobody did! It wasn't super-deluxe and there was a dead cockroach in the wardrobe, but no live ones, and it had Sky TV!
Our little apartment - complete with servant boy.
We decided we would enter into the Surfers Paradise spirit and go on the bar crawl that the man told us about. It was called “Backpackers Big Night Out” and for $30 they said they would take us to 4 clubs along with people from 7 other hostels in Surfers. We don’t usually go clubbing (especially Chris!) and we were a bit terrified about the whole thing but we hadn’t really had any major nights out yet so we decided it was about bloody time. So that meant we spent the afternoon shopping as Jen was adamant that she would need a dress if we were going out on the town. As we were getting ready in the comfort of our private apartment, two of the hostel staff came round to sell us tickets. They also gave us cowboy hats, glowsticks to wear round our necks and told us to be at the pool by 8pm where they would be serving unlimited punch. We began to feel terrified again.
Still it was nice to get dressed up for once and the mystery punch wasn’t too bad. After a few plastic cups full they piled us all onto a coach and drove us to the first club, as we walked in they gave us a voucher for a free drink and all other drinks we bought had money off. We didn’t really do much dancing (Chris doesn’t dance) but we watched other people dancing like they really meant it and laughed at them. By the time we got to the third club, the free drinks, the mystery punch and the cheap drinks had all begun to take their toll. We never made it to the fourth club. We decided we’d had enough and stumbled home.
The next day we felt slightly rotten so ended up spending the morning watching loads of American cop shows on our big screen telly in our apartment. We’re now avid fans of NCIS and SVU. That afternoon Chris hired a surf board from the hostel and we headed back to the beach. The surf wasn’t great and once Chris had, had enough of being thrown about by the sea we headed back to our apartment, ate some dinner and watched a film.
Chris: For the record, I am awesome at surfing.
The next day we packed up early and after a short round trip in the minibus to collect Jen’s forgotten inhaler, we caught the coach to Brisbane.
When we left Surfers it was lovely and sunny, when we arrived in Brisbane it was grey and a bit rainy. But once again, a nice man in a minibus collected us and although there was no upgrade to a private room we got a special rate of $15 for our first night so we were pleased. We headed up to our room and discussed going to the koala sanctuary but decided to have a sleep instead which ended up lasting a few hours. We’ve had quite a sleepy time in Brisbane as it turns out. That night we had a few beers at the hostel bar and headed out for some delicious Greek food.
The next day we woke up to another grey day but decided to go to the koala sanctuary anyway. It wasn’t very far but it took us two hours to get there as we ended up waiting over an hour for the bus! Never would have happened in London…! We loved the koala sanctuary - we went there because we’d read that you could hold a koala and have your photo taken with it, which we did - but our favourite part was that you could walk straight into the kangaroo enclosure and hand feed them and stroke them! It was awesome. Jen was a bit nervous at first because they were a bit bitey and a bit scratchy but it was a lot of fun. We also got to hold some baby chicks and see a platypus, Tasmanian devils and wombats. It was a great day.
A tiny chick!
Jen stroking a wallaby.
Chris feeding a kangaroo.
Chris holding a koala.
Jen posing for her official koala photo. While the zoo keeper woman made a really weird growly noise.
Note. This is not a real platypus.
When we got back to the hostel we cooked some dinner and then went to our room to watch more cop shows. We love cop shows.
When we woke up this morning Jen was feeling very poorly. After trying to get up Jen did some sick so she went back to bed while Chris went off and made himself breakfast and went out to get a haircut. Jen woke up around 2pm and decided that the grotty dorm room was not making her feel better, and after doing a bit more sick and nearly fainting in the shower, managed to get herself together enough to leave the building.
We walked (very slowly) to the city beach where Jen ate some crisps and felt a bit better. Then we went to the cinema and watched Alice in Wonderland in 3D which we really liked and Jen felt even better after sitting down in the dark for a few hours. We walked back to our hostel where Jen felt well enough for steak and mashed potato with baked beans for tea.
Tomorrow we’re getting the coach to Australia Zoo which is the late Steve Irwin’s zoo so we’re really looking forward to it. Afterwards we will catch the coach to Noosa for a few days.
Our Australian blogs have been much shorter and less regular than our New Zealand blogs due to a lack of wireless internet and a lack of us actually doing exciting stuff. But it’s been very nice to just mooch around places, eat food and do some sleeping. In a few weeks we’ll be sailing round the Whitsundays, diving on the Great Barrier Reef and trekking through the rainforest in Cape Tribulation. Those blogs will be much more interesting.
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