Week 4 - Chasing the Sun!

Sorry for the delay with the last post, the wifi connection wasn't very good and it wouldn't post properly.

I think I finished on Monday when the weather was absolutely awful. Turns out Sydney was having a superstorm and it was the worst they'd seen in 17 years. I left on the Monday night which was when  it all started. We set off on our 8 hour journey through wind, rain, thunder and lightning only to get delayed by an hour because there were trees lying in the road. Not great when you're in the middle of no where in the middle of the night! 

Anyway I finally made it to Spot X at Woolgoolga for my Mojosurf surfing camp at 7am and headed off with the guy to the campsite. After eating breakfast and checking in I had a lesson pretty much straight away at 9:30am so went and got changed and headed over the meeting point.

The beach we surfed on - Arrawarra

I met my group who were all lovely, got kitted up and headed to the water. My aim for the next 3 days was to stand on the board which I managed to do in the first lesson so I was pretty chuffed about that!

After that we had lunch and then had the afternoon to relax in the sun. The campsite is pretty much in the middle of no where. It's beautiful but it means no bars or clubs so I had to get the 7:30pm shuttle bus to the bottle shop to get myself some alcohol for the next couple of days. We then played drinking games all night and sat and chatted and just had a really good time. The stars were absolutely amazing there as well, never seen so many!

 

The accommodation was interesting - dorms of 6 in these shipping cabinets. They were actually really nice but the toilets and shower were outside and freezing. Needless to say I went and used the warm communal showers. The toilets were ok until I got myself locked in one, which then meant shouting for my roommate who had to use a coin to unlock me from the outside!

The accommodation 

Day 2 our lesson was at 8am! Can't believe I was up so early to go in the sea! Had a really good session this time, managed to stand up and ride the wave in properly and also did a party wave with my friend which is where you both ride the wave together and hold hands. 

Day 2

Party wave!

That afternoon I bought the $99 package which included all my photos, afternoon activities a shirt and a hat so a group of us decided to go and do the kayaking along the creek. It was quite fun to do and I was with my new found friends so we all had a really good laugh!

The next day was my final day, one more surf lesson in the morning and then in the afternoon we went ocean rafting - terrifying experience! The aim was to paddle the boat out and then ride the waves in but the waves were so big they kept breaking on the boat and capsizing us all! We only managed 2 waves!

Day 3

I had to leave everybody at 4:45 which was really sad but we headed off to catch the bus - which ended up being an hour and a half late due to the flooding in Sydney. He managed to catch up time however and we arrived in Byron Bay at 10pm - enough time to be able to get ready and go out.

Byron Bay is really cool - it's mad - it's really chilled, has some amazing restaurants and the beach is beautiful but although everyone is really friendly you wouldn't want to walk around in your own at night there are some nut jobs! It's basically a hippie village so the atmosphere is very relaxed!

The beach at Byron Bay.

My hairbraid - apparently you have to think of something you want to achieve and when you take it out you have to talk about how you achieved it.

Henna tattoo!

On the Saturday we missed our early bus and booked onto a late one as we wanted to go to Nimbin. It's a tiny village near Byron and you can walk up and down the length of it in about 10 minutes, it's really cute there and they sell all sorts of random stuff - and a lot of hemp related things! 

Nimbin selfie!

That evening we caught our bus and arrived in Surfers Paradise or The Gold Coast. We were so knackered that evening we fell straight to sleep but the next day we went to Dreamworld which is their most popular theme park. It's based on Dreamworks films which was really cool so cue lots of photos with cartoon characters! The rides were really fun, my favourite was the tower of terror - a ride that shoots you backwards up a tower and then drops you forwards again. It was so fun and we had a really good day.

Alex the lion from Madagascar!

Kung Fu Panda - I nearly pushed him in the bush!

Again I had some really lovely roommates so that evening we all went out together - we started the night with drinks and some rather loud singing in the jacuzzi which was a bonus, didn't expect to have a jacuzzi! We then got ready and headed over to a nightclub to end the night.

It's now Monday and this morning we are planning to have a wander around the town and see the beach before we get our bus to Brisbane.

Will speak to you all next week!

With love, Lauren x

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Week 3 - Going Down Under!

I can't believe Thailand is over!

I had such an amazing two weeks and experienced some pretty incredible things. I finished off my last post arriving in Bangkok. After checking in we chilled out in our hotel room after a pretty long, uncomfortable train journey and then went off to the shopping centre in the afternoon to have a browse. It's really cool in there and we found an amazing cheap restaurant that serves the best pasta I have ever tasted. I miss how cheap everything was!

Mini pineapple - these mini fruits were everywhere!

When we arrived it was Songkran festival in Thailand which is the celebration of the Thai new year. It starts on the 13th April every year and continues to the 15th. It's a massive celebration and the streets are packed with people having water fights and spreading chalk all over each other. It comes from the tradition of water washing away all of your sins and bad luck and the chalk is used in reference to the chalk monks used to mark blessings. 

Everyone having water fights in the street. 

Everywhere you went you were likely to get wet which resulted in me having my purse and phone constantly in a plastic bag. We picked up our water guns at the market and then proceeded to Kaoh San Road that evening. I was definitely not prepared for how mental it was! The streets were absolutely packed and everyone was moving along at the pace of snails in one massive crowd, horrible! We made a beeline for Burger King, had some food and waited for about 45 minutes and eventually it did clear slightly. Still really busy but at least we could wak down the road. It ended up being one of the best nights I've ever had, the streets were full with people dancing and spraying water guns and having such a good time. 

Tuesday I have nothing to say, we pretty much spent the whole day in bed recovering and having a much needed rest and lazy day watching telly. The evening was fun though. We got ourselves all dressed up and headed off The Dome at Lebua which is the sky bar from the film The Hangover 2. We got a hangovertini which is a whiskey based cocktail - super strong but I wanted the novelty - and enjoyed the amazing views over Bangkok. 

The restaurant and bar overlooking Bangkok. 

The view from the top. 

The Dome.

Us and the boys on our last night altogether :(

On Wednesday me and Pippa attempted (for the second time) to go to the Grand Palace. After the journey, which takes quite a lot of effort, we got there eventually only to find out it was shut all day for Songkran. It was just not meant to be for me to see it! However I did get my baggy thai trousers which I was super excited about!

We headed back to the hotel, had a last dip in the pool and then set off for the airport for the 9 and a half hour flight to Sydney. It was an overnight flight with Quantas and I was very impressed by the service, we even had a menu!

We landed in Sydney and cleared immigration (just about due to my error when doing my visa!) and set off for the hostel. We're staying in Wake Up which is probably the best known and most popular backpackers hostel. We're in a mixed dorm of 6 but if I'm being honest I'd rather be in a 10. The room is tiny and so far all our roommates haven't been very sociable so we've made friends in other dorms and floors and had to sneak in the early hours of the morning so as we don't wake everyone up. The hostel itself is really clean, the staff are so helpful and friendly and the best thing is we have a bar downstairs so it's a super short walk back to our room. 

I didn't want to sleep when I was there as to avoid jet lag, so we had a wander around the hostel, went to the shops to get some food as we were cooking quite a lot so we save money and just generally getting a feel for it. On Friday we went on a guided city tour run by the hostel. It was so interesting to see everything and realise how close everything is, it was raining which was a shame but was still good fun and this is where we met quite a lot of people. That night we all went to one of their dorms, played drinking games and then went to the bar downstairs. 

On Saturday it was sunnier so a few of us decided to do the walk again to get some nicer pictures of everything. Unfortunately by the time we got to the opera house it was still cloudy so no blue sky photos for me but at least it was warmer and wasn't raining! We also found the rocks square which was really cool. It had loads of little shops and cafes and a German bar which was meant to be really good but a little bit out our price range!

Sydney Opera House!

Harbour bridge

Government house.

Botanica Gardens - so beautiful!

Hyde Park

Australia's native bird - such a weird looking thing!

The Cathedral.

My Santorini sandwich in the rocks - it was amazing - lamb, olives, mint yoghurt, feta and salad!

After getting back to the hostel I went and bought myself a cheap Australian phone and SIM card which will make life so much easier as I have to call a lot of the companies to book onto my tours and accommodation. I also stopped at a salon and had my hands and feet done which felt sooo good! That evening a group of us went down to Darling Harbour to watch the fireworks which were amazing. They spend $70,000 on a display every Saturday! We then went for drinks at a local irish bar and of course ended up in side bar!

Finally got my nails done! 

With the side bar bouncers who were lovely! 

On Sunday we were meant to be going to the Blue Mountains but didn't get up in time - I'm going to do this when I'm back for 4 days at the end of my Australia trip. Instead we chilled out in the morning and then went off to Bondi Beach with a couple of Pippa's friends who was able to show us around. It was so windy though so we didn't actually get on the beach we just ended up having drinks in a bar but it was lovely and was still nice to see it!

Bondi Beach at night!

Today is Monday and the weather is horrible. It has rained constantly all day and has been really cold so we've had to find things to do inside - pretty hard when everything is based outside! We needed up going to the museum of contemporary art which was cool and then visited Sydney's oldest pub. We finished off in Cyrens happy hour so got cider for $5 and an amazing pizza for $10. Now I'm just waiting to hop on my 10pm bus to Spot X for surf camp - got a long 9 hour bus journey ahead of me - fun times! 

The bridge at Darling Harbour in the rain!

Some of the pieces at the museum, this is the creepiest one, not entirely sure what's going on here! I don't really get art!

Speak to you soon.

With love, Lauren x

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