The Land Down Under
Trip Start
Sep 19, 2009
1
9
10
Trip End
Dec 22, 2009
Byron Bay,
New South Wales,
Australia
Saturday, November 7, 2009
After a short flight from New Zealand we landed in Sydney and automatically felt the change in temperature! We stayed in this pretty sweet hostel which was an old railway station converted into a hostel. The best thing about it was that each night they cooked a meal for $5, so we didn't have to do much cooking! The 2nd day we arrived it was 38 degrees outside so we headed to Manly Beach which is one of the many beaches in Sydney. The ride there was pretty cool as we had to catch a ferry at the warf near the opera house then be ferried across. Manly beach was a cool spot that had it's own shops and restaurants. We took a well deserved swim in the ocean to cool off that day! The next few days in Syndey were raining, so we just relaxed and walked around the city.
We jumped on the Oz Experience bus about 3 days ago where we headed to Mojo Surf Camp
Sydney Opera House
. The drive was pretty long, about 6 hours on the bus which kinda sucked. We didn't realize the huge distance from Syndey to Cairns it's 3500 kilometres! Yikes! That night surf camp cooked for us and we got to meet some of the people on the bus. We've noticed that there are more Canadians here in Oz then in NZ, I guess we all head here for the weather!The next morning we had our surf lessons. It was raining but the surf was up! We put on our wetsuits and about 30 of us swam out to catch a wave. It must have looked pretty funny with all of these people in the water falling all over the place. We both managed to get up on our boards a few times which was good. It's hard but addiciting, we want to go again! On the drive from surf camp we were able to see some kangaroos from the side of the road, but they are too quick to catch a picture of!
From surf camp we drove to Byron Bay where we are currently and are spending a few days. Byron Bay has been GREAT so far! A small costal town with a great backpacker vibe. Last night about 20 of us from the bus headed across the street to "Cheeky Monkey's" where we had a cheap $5 meal and beer and a great time! The bar was packed as it was a Friday night and by the end of the night half the bar was dancing on the tables! A fun time was had by all.
Today we relaxed on the beach and swam in the ocean, I think we're gonna have a hard time getting back to our old ways of living!! ha ha. Hopefully the weather is nice tomorrow as we want to go to the beach again and head down to the local markets.
We leave in a few days to Surfers Paradise/Gold Coast and we are hoping the sun gods continue to smile upon us!
