Sydney - Byron Bay - Noosa

On my last day in Sydney I went to visit the Botanic Gardens and Mrs McQuarries Chair. I saw lost of bats in the trees in the but gdns and spent ages trying to take photos of them as they circled right over my head. The views from the bot gdns are wonderful but its a bit small compared to Kew :-). If you walk a bit further along you come to Mrs McQuarries chair this is a headland that has a brilliant view of the habour (and also one of the places they let of the fireworks from , they are dismantling the structure from the fireworks as I pass). Mrs McQuarrie was the wife of one of the first governors Lachlan McQuarrie (obviously Scottish). He was credited with changing reforming the penal colony at a time when it was a rough place, establishing in law and order and turning it into a proper port and city. His wife Mrs McQuarrie apparently liked to sit here and admire the view.

The bus from Sydney to Byron Bay takes 14 hours with two meals stops along the way, they show really crap videos on the bus but its impossible not to watch them. Its like a Greyhound bus but its a bit cheaper (its called Premier) you buy a ticket that allows you to travel up the east coast whenever you like, you just phone ahead and book your seat on the bus. Sydney was packed for nye and so everyone is now trying to leave at the same time, the buses are all full on the 1st and on the 2nd. When you get to Byron Bay, about 30 people get off, the driver unloads the backpacks onto the pavement and there are minibuses from all the hostels waiting to meet people. Because BBY is packed, I end up in a in Lennox Head which is a bit out of BBY, it holds approx 74 people but the woman who runs it seems to find a way to keep on increasing the number of beds in each room and even sends people off to stay with her sister when she runs out of space. In the hostel there are people from Canada, a few people from Australia, a lot of people from Germany (I asked one guy why and he said it is in fashion in Germany right now to go backpacking in Australia). In hostels people tend to buy drink and sit around chatting and drinking because its cheaper than going to the pub. You just sit down on one of the sofas and people talk to you, usually they start off by asking the standard questions like where are you from, how long are you travelling are you going north or south, etc. There is a really interesting guy called Glenn who works in IT (he didn't tell me and I really didn't want to know anything more specific). He comes from Perth but he has traveled a lot in Australia and he has lots of funny stories and strong opinions about some places.

On the second night we are sitting around playing drinking games, and then a bunch of people go to the pub. The guys from Sydney are really into surfing in a big way, they get up at 6am and surf for 4 hours in the morning and then another 4 hours in the afternoon. They are stunningly fit, tanned, young and attractive. One of them saw Jack Johnson on the beach and that prompts a whole discussion about cult surfing videos with a guy from Florida. On the way back from the pub there is a thunderstorm and we all get totally soaked.

I am up early the next morning to catch the bus to Noosa and the young people are going off to their cleaning jobs to make some money so that they can continue travelling. They all do jobs like cleaning, driving and sometimes they do fruit picking. Its really easy to get a three month work visa if you are between 18 and 30. Everyone walks around all the time wearing the uniform of flipflops which they call thongs here and Quicksilver, Billabong, Rip Curl, the girls wear Roxy. The call sunglasses sunnies and swimsuits swimmers. It is very easy to do nothing except go to the beach, it is such a relaxed atmosphere. People just rock up (ie turn up) somewhere and see what happens.

In Noosa I have my first surfing lesson, I was really not looking forward to it after I had watched people doing it in BBY. But I was surprised how much fun it is, it is fantastic. They give you a big foam board not a fibreglass one so that if it hits you on he head it doesn't hurt too much. The hardest part is getting out, the waves are so strong they just sweep you off your feet and them suck the sand away from under your feet as they pull back out again. They are relentless and pounding, they make a load (really loud) roaring sounds all the time. The instructors make it easy by holding your board till you get on, then pushing you to catch the wave and then shouting "push up" when you need to get up. I can't stand up but almost, I can get two feet on the board and almost stand up but I couldn't quite make it before I got too exhausted and needed to stop. Even doing it for a couple of hours is brilliant, the waves push you along so fast and the board is actually quite stable once you get on the wave but I cannot believe how fit you would need to be to do this for 4 hours, I would die. Once you get started there is a lot more to learn about breaks and rips.