Byron Bay...

After Brisbane I stopped in Surfers Paradise...far from paradise! I did not like this place at all and so will skip straight to the lovely Byron Bay. My first night here a group of us from the Oz Experience bus headed to the infamous Cheeky Monkeys for free food and lots of free drink followed by some dancing to cheesy music on the tables. Day 2 in Byron was pretty much spent in bed recovering. Day 3 I went on a day trip to Nimbins described as the Amsterdam of Australia. Where drugs are illegal but the police really do seem to turn a blind eye, the whole place stinks of weed. The town however is a really cute little place full of aging hippies. The bus ride to and from Nimbins was my highlight as we traveled in an amazing old bus similar to ones you see in films when they drive army men out to Vietnam all painted up in bright colours and blasting out some typical hippies tunes. That night there was a hippie style market in town and I decided to get a tarot card reading, good job I don't believe in that stuff as mine didn't paint my future out to be to great! The next morning I went to try out sea kayaking which didn't look too hard once you are out in the sea but getting through the waves looked pretty difficult and unfortunately the day I chose to go was a pretty bad day and the waves were huge! It took a really long time to get all the kayaks out and by the time it got to me and my partner the waves were even bigger so a guide hopped in made me sit in the middle and said he would get us out as it would be too difficult for 2 people who have never kayaked before. So off we went getting hit by 2 pretty big waves that through us all straight from the kayak, lucky I was wearing a helmet as I lost count of the amount of times I got smacked in the head by not only the other guys but the kayak itself. We dragged ourselves back on and were swiftly hit by another wave twice the size of the last one and I got sucked under the water for what felt like forever. By the time my life jacket bounced me back to the top I got hit by another huge wave, now really not happy and struggling to breath the guide threw me over his shoulder and swam me back to shore. The guide was so apologetic, gave us a full refund and insisted we come back to try again tomorrow for free despite it not being their fault at all, you can't help how big the waves are. Nervously I returned the next day bringing with me my new friend Marion. The waves were a lot smaller but we still managed to fall from the kayak and so I decided I was done, happy to have tried again but I was too scared to go in for yet another attempt. After at least 20 minutes worth of convincing one of the guides talked me into joining him in his kayak which I did, we got straight through the waves and had the best time out in the sea and even got to see a huge turtle catching some waves. My last couple of days in Byron Bay I spent mainly at the beach enjoying the last bit of sunshine I was to get in a while.