Countryside, Surfing, and Bad Weather in Byron

Ok, so I've left Sydney, we stayed over at a place called 'Barrington Top's for the first night. Ate pizza and relaxed in a hot tub outside with a few drinks... It was in the middle of nowhere, felt great to be there after a few days in a busy city.

Next day, up to Surf Camp where we'd learn to be awesome surfers at the 'Mojo Surf Camp', its in a place called Arrawarra(?) just above Coffs Harbour; (home of the 'Big Banana'). We did some evening surfing and although I was brimming with confidence I couldn't manage more than a second or two of standing up. Its a lot more difficult than it looks and its all about technique! Many a time I crashed out underwater!! Feeling quite gutted at the end of the session just before dusk, I hit the beers along with everyone else and just sat around a campfire after dinner.

The next morning we got to go surfing at 8am, high tide was at about 9am and the water was so far up the beach, well, there wasn't really any beach left! With more frustration I kept getting swept off the board! The waves were harder to judge than the evening before, but in the end I did manage to stand up! Wa-hey! Several more tiny mistakes later, I got the hang of it and managed to stay on the board until the shore a couple of times. Its such a cool feeling and despite being pretty tired and full of salt water I just wanted more and more of it!

After drying off and packing up we set off for Byron Bay (driving past the 'Big Shrimp' on the way too). I'd only heard great things about this laid-back little seafront town, but that evening after a quick walk and tour of the little town the weather started to get a bit crummy.... A disappointing night on the piss (place was full of locals and hardly any backpackers in sight!) and the next morning I was (typically) in a bad state of hangovers! The weather hasn't gotten any better (rain and cloud!!!) so there is NOTHING to do here as the only things you can do (surf, lie on the beach, go for walks) you can't, because of the weather!!!

Spent a few days in Brisbane with a couple of brothers I met on the Oz bus (or BrisVegas as its locally known!) and we spent a few days eating a lot and generally getting stuck into a fair share of cider... Not much else to do in Brisbane really. Weather was getting slowly better.... Heres hoping for good weather further up north.