Wow the greyhound busses are like luxury, leather seats, USB charging, wifi and a toilet on board, I call it the posh bus. I feel like I underestimated how long 13 hours was again, which is the same length of time my 2nd flight from Abu Dhabi to Sydney was. This journey went a lot smoother though, no one sitting next to me, and being able to recline my seat back without a worry. Only managed to get about 4-5 hours sleep, which isn’t great, sitting in the same spot for ages isn’t comfortable one bit! But as for one girl at the back of the bus, sitting wasn’t the option, she literally had her legs and arms sprawled out everywhere, trying to squeeze past her to go to the toilet was a mission….!
After arriving we waited about 20 minutes to be picked up, and arrived at the hostel about 8.30am. Check in wasn’t until about 11am, some of the girls headed to the beach and asked if I wanted to join, so I went for an hour or so to pass the time. The beach was amazing, white sand, makes such a change from home and the horrible pebbled beaches.. !
After check in, I unpacked a little and napped for about 3 hours to give me some energy for the evening ahead! The hostel was amazing, hammocks in the garden, with bush turkeys running loose haha, a small pool, outside seating area, so chilled.
Once I got to my room, there was one bed available, the top bunk.. Again 😒 but this bunk didn’t have a ladder or a banister to stop me from falling out!! I was scared to go to bed… Let alone even getting into bed!!
I found out you have to pay for the wifi here, $1 for 15 mins, $3 for an hour and $10 for the day, not worth having everyday, would cost me a fortune, as long as my family and friends knew I arrived all ok, wifi wasn’t an issue, apart from later in the week 😎
I headed out in the evening with a few people, a girl called Evie, from Manchester, Krupa from Leicester and Antony from France and a few from girls from Germany. We went to a place called ‘Cheeky Monkeys’ for a meal, as it was half price night, my steak sandwich cost me $7.50 (£3.25!) and a free drink… Bargin!! We also managed to blag another free drink too…!
Headed back to the hostel for an hour or so, stopped by the bottle shop on the way back and grabbed a box of wine.. Which they call ‘goon’ here… Strange I know.. But for $11, split with Krupa, can’t go wrong really!
We had a few glasses then heading back to Cheeky Monkeys for the evening about 10pm, by 12am I Remember yawning so much, and headed back with the girls!
I can’t explain how chilled out it is in Byron, it seems like I haven’t done anything at all, but I actually have. I had my surf lesson, which was harder than expected, I think I was the only one in the class that didn’t stand on the board, and kept on face planting the water, think I swallowed most of the sea haha. In the end I pretty much gave up and sat on the beach and watched everyone else succeed, I must have looked like a small moany child that couldn’t get her own way haha.
Later that evening we were provided with dinner as part of our package, we headed out about 7.30pm, there was about 6 of us all together, literally dinner consisted of the group leader taking us to a pizza joint and letting us order what we want, tbh I thought it was a bit shit and unorganised, as we waited around for a while, the girl in charge looked about 10 and didn’t know who was coming… All of the confusion to have a crappy pizza, in which I thought we would be taken to a restaurant or something, which I would class as ‘dinner’ not take out lol. I can’t really complain though as the pizza was actually really nice.
The next day I headed to the beach with Evie and went body boarding, now this is was so much better at! I actually managed to ride some waves… YEAHHHH. It was so hot that day, I had so much factor 50 on all morning, apply, re apply, apply re apply, but yet again my fair skin and ginger hair got the better of me… And I burnt from head to toe. Joy. But on the lighter side, 2 of my rooms mates had left that afternoon, so I moved beds to the lower bunk… At last! I didn’t have to pull myself until bed and worry about falling to my near death!!
Later that evening, I mainly sat out in the garden drinking, we ended up playing ‘cards against humanity’, which ended up being pretty funny as some of the Swedish blokes we were playing it with couldn’t understand half of the words on the cards haha. We headed out to Cocomangs about 10, but by 12 I headed back to the hostel, Friday nights = too many people + sunburn… Ouch, plus I had such a bad head… Again I blame the sun burn!
On Saturday, I didn’t do much, spent the majority of the day in the shade, out of the sun, I did nip out to get some food shopping though, thought it was about time that I bought my own oil and stopped pinching little bits of other people’s hahaha. Then spent the afternoon in the greyhound travel shop booking the dates for my trips, most are sorted now! Just got to work my hostels around them and busses, and it will all come together! The hostel was buzzing at night, so many new groups of people turning up, probably for a blow out weekend as the majority of them are Aussies, suppose it’s nice to get a hostel for the weekend, defiantly cheaper than getting a hotel. It was a little annoying as I think the hostel drew the attention of 2 big football teams, one male team and one female team. They were loud and unruly all evening, plus their rooms completely surrounded mine, with music blaring and loud shouting. But then again I can’t complain, I am in a hostel after all, plus it’s Saturday night, I’ve been partying too hard during the week, tonight I just chilled, Skyped my Mum, Dad and Beth, which was nice. Mums ‘quick’ Skype session lasted about 45 minutes as always, usually my fault as I babble on for ages haha! Then 10.30pm came when the outside area and common room get shut down, so I got shoved out and pretty much went to bed…. And was glad that all the big groups had headed to town so I could get a peaceful nights sleep ready for Nimbin in the morning 🙂
Well Nimbin was eventful today, got picked up from the Hostel around 10am on the ‘happy coach’, we took a trip to a waterfall, then headed to Nimbin, which was about 1 and a half hours away from the hostel. I always thought Nimbin would be a little awesome town full of hippies… Which I was half right. It really only consisted of a Main Street full of old hippies with no shoes on selling weed and weed cookies. Some of the shops were cool though, the majority of quirky shop owners had no shoes on though haha.
Glad we only stopped by the town for an hour, don’t think I would want to be around them people any longer, very strange individuals. I’m not going to lie though, a couple of us bought some space cakes and ate them on the bus coming back, I remember getting back to the hostel and feeling fine, until about an hour later…. Got the Munchies pretty bad haha. Luckily I pre made loads of pasta last night 👍🏻 so I already had my dinner made! … I then went to eat pretty much a pack of cookies and some toast. Then headed to bed about 10.30pm after watching about 5 episodes of catfish 😂 ….I Had to force myself not to eat anything else haha!
I didn’t want to get out of bed the next morning, I remember my alarm beeping about 5 times, must have pissed Greg and Matias off (my roommates). I got up about 10.30… Pretty much half of my morning was wasted lol! The majority of people were already making their lunch when I rocked up in the kitchen to make poached eggs on toast haha. I was just happy that I’ve got my poached eggs to perfection now… Runny every time haha!
About midday I took an hours walk to the lighthouse right on the edge of the bay, the walk felt like a killer though, it was so hot, but I made sure I put on plenty of factor 50 throughout the day.. And for once I didn’t burn YES!! I remember walking about half way to the bottom of the cliff and contemplated walking up the hundreds of steps to the top where the lighthouse was. After nearly deciding against it as it was boiling, I made my way up, it took a while… But I made it… One sweaty mess later lol!
The views from the top were incredible! I stayed up there for about an hour as you could see so far out into the ocean, I saw a whale jump out of the water not too far away.. So amazing to see them in the wild. There were plenty of dolphins too swimming around in little groups, also a couple of turtles bobbing about. It was so worth the wait at the top to capture all of this… Just wish I was a little faster with my camera to take some photos!!
Later on in the evening a couple of us ventured to the Aquarius hostel for dinner, managed to get soy honey chicken, jasmine rice and a drink for $5, (£2.50) can’t get any better than that. Such a cheap night out! They had jelly wrestling that evening, you can get a £50 tab behind the bar for taking part and if you won £200 cash. They asked me if it wanted to do it.. I told them to do one. I’m not surprised they asked me though, I was wearing a bikini top With a t shirt over the top… Looked like I was dressed for the occasion. I only wore the bikini top as a back up.. Sunburnt back + bra = a lot of pain lol!!
Some of the girls that took part though… I remember Matias standing next to me and whispering ‘sluts, sluts everywhere’ hahahah and tbh he was right, the girls were barely 20+ in skimpy bikinis…. I think the guys loved it… They must have done at one point.. After one girls boob fell out… Oops haha.
I got bored after a while and headed back, only so much half naked jelly wrestling women you can watch without looking like a massive lesbo hahaha.
The next day was pretty much a write off, but as for some of the people of Byron bay it was a day well spent. I lounged around in the garden for a few hours reading my book, went to the shop to get some chicken and watched 2 episodes of the walking dead. A lot of the people here lounge around and do nothing all day, even some of the people that work at the hostel to pay for their accommodation… I always think how boring. In other words I feel like I’ve wasted a day, I could have gone for a walk or to the beach, I feel like I’m ready to move on now, 10 nights in Byron is too long in my eyes, 5-6 would have been enough. I know everyone says how amazing Byron Bay is, but that’s mainly the opinion of the backpackers that don’t give a fuck and that have been here for months, the stoners and hippys lol. I’m looking forward to heading to Surfers paradise on Friday 23rd 😆 and getting the chance to meet new people and see the sites!
My Tuesday evening was pretty chilled also, on Tuesday’s, Thursday’s and Sunday’s in the garden, the staff put up a big screen and a projector, and put all of the bean bags outside for a movie night. I decided to stay in and not go out for dinner with the others as they mentioned earlier that they would be watching James Bond – Goldfinger, in the end the DVD wouldn’t work and we had to watch ‘The Butler’ instead, I was pretty annoyed as I could have gone out, but in the end the movie was actually pretty good!
Wednesday morning I hired out a body board determined not to waste a day doing nothing again. I headed down to the beach about 10.30/11 it was pretty quiet….After a while I realised why. The wind was so strong it was blowing sand all over the place, I attempted to read my book, which lasted for about 10 minutes, the waves looked too choppy also, hardly any surfers, so I headed back to the hostel. The rest of the day was spent chilling out in the garden reading and watching many episodes of the Simpsons and family guy on fox. Now I defiantly feel like I’m ready to leave here, starting to become bored!
I was determined that evening to go out for a drink and not stay in, I got talking to a guy in the kitchen who I found out lives in Market Harborough, and just up the road from where I use to work… Small world! Later on about 15 of us sat around one table drinking and headed into town. I think the wine hit me quite hard before I had even left. So I stopped drinking while I was out… Didn’t want to be a drunken mess and someone else’s responsibility haha. We ended up on woody’s surf shack again, after paying $10 to get in (I really hate paying entry prices!) think I lasted about 3/4 of an hour in there then headed back about 1am, ready for bed! Wow I’m getting boring haha!
It’s now Thursday morning, I was a lazy bum and didn’t get out of bed until 11am… Oops. Most of the day will be spent packing and doing laundry ready for when I leave tomorrow…. Finnnaallllyyyy! Can’t wait to get to surfers now! 😍
I’ve just realised how long this post is.. Maybe because I wrote sections every night so I wouldn’t forget! Probably better doing it this way 😊
I’ll attach pics in the next post ☺️
Laters X
charlottesbackpackadventure 