Overnight buses RULE!

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  Sydney, Australia
Wednesday, March 21, 2007

We're back in Sydney after getting the overnight Greyhound bus from Byron. The bus there was fine, but coming back was a different story. The bus was ancient, with wrecked seats and of course we managed to get the seats with the air conditioning unit under the seats in front, i.e., no legroom. Having spent a week on the beach I was overdressed with a t-shirt and flip-flops (note on flip-flops: there ARE less stupid names for them, but not much. In New Zealand they were jandals, and here they are thongs. Suggestions for better names on a postcard please... They may have many silly names, but at least they don't look as ridiculous as those Crocs that everyone is wearing now, in the most rancid colours imaginable. But I digress.), and so my feet were bare in order to find all the sharp metal edges cunningly concealed all over the shop. But anyway, can't complain - if we were real adults we would have flown for a similar price and slept in a real bed (but no, not us).

The rest of the trip in Byron was uneventful but excellent. I spent a couple of hours surfing every day since the lesson and it's addictive as anything I've done since I was a child. We took lessons with the excellent and amazingly friendly Black Dog Surfing team (http://www.blackdogsurfing.com), and so I was back there every day for practice sessions with them. They took me and the board to where the good waves were on a given day and left me to it. Great value too, I highly recommend it! (End of blatant plug) Catching one good wave over the two hours was enough to feed the addiction and keep it growing. I'm now scouring the Southeast Asia guidebook for good places to continue my education... Other than the strenuous surfing action, other activities included eating ice cream and other healthy foods, and drinking booze. St. Patrick's Day was a good laugh, and over the week we met some fine travelling buddies so that we didn't have to sit in "companionable" silence EVERY night of the week...

But anyway now we are back staying with Max and Jo and Jake in their excellent gaff in Naraweena near Dee Why in Sydney. And realizing that we still don't have tickets for our flight to Singapore next week, we don't know anything about visas, we don't have definite onward travel plans, and we have no anti-malarial medication sorted as yet. So I'll be spending the next week assuming that I can sort all of that out in Singapore, and taking it easy for the last few days in Oz. Flicking through the Asia guidebook has given me a taste for the wonders of Asia again, and so we're really looking forward to Singapore. Jenny's folks and her sister will be there too, and we'll be staying in luxurious surroundings throughout (thanks Mr. and Mrs. S!) Over and out. Dave.