Spring Break! (part 2)

(This is a bit of a long one!!) After a very stressful first day, we woke up bright and early as the sun rose to expose the car park we'd spent the night sleeping in. Despite the setting, morale of the group was high, we all got up, had breakfast, took some pictures, had some laughs, and were on the road again by ten.

The day basically consisted of a lot of driving... We had a long way to go, and had to catch up on the lost hours from the day before so there's not much to write about here. We all had our radios in sync and were all singing along to classics such as "I want it that way" and "Moves like Jagger." We'd been told by our mate Woolies that we should check out the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour, so when we got there at around 3pm it's fair to say that we were a little underwhelmed - it was just a big model banana that you could walk through with a restaurant and gift shop where you could buy many banana related products. There was also a banana plantation and a big slide, but you had to pay to go to them, so we didn't. Since we were there anyway, it would have been a shame not to buy some sort of banana paraphernalia, so a few of us bought banana splits and banana milkshakes and went back to the vans.

The ridiculousness of the banana theme park was soon out of our minds when we got back to the vans and discovered a leaking green liquid coming from Matt's van. After much deliberation, the leaking stopped and we decided that there was nothing to worry about (or at least nothing we could be bothered to worry about) and carried on. It was probably engine coolant, which is pretty bad... but we had no troubles for the rest of the journey so it can't have been that bad!

We drove more and more north, but soon discovered that a bridge further along the highway was closed due to a crash, so we called the other buys from our accommodation who were doing a similar road trip to see what they were doing. They told us to go to Jake's town (Jake is a close friend of Kooloobong, who used to live here, but doesn't any more, but is still around quite a lot anyway - he's the one that taught me to surf). We put the name of his town, Brooms Head, into the satnav and followed the directions it gave us. It directed us off the main highway and down some country roads, and I didn't mind as such, but people weren't very happy with the way that we were going, so we pulled over so we could discuss our next plan. We spent a few minutes bickering, some were saying "this isn't the right way" but of course Matt didn't know where he was, he was just doing what the GPS told him! Thankfully, a few minutes later Jake and the boys drove past, saw us and pulled over. We were now one big, happy family of fifteen and could make our way to Jake's place.

Obviously there was not enough room for fifteen of us in his house, so Jake showed us a camp site nearby where we parked our vans and settled for the night. We got there about an hour before the sun set, so we could really appreciate the area. The site and views were absolutely beautiful, kangaroos were hopping around casually, and the site had its own little beach. After two long days of stressful driving, a dip in a sea seemed like the best thing in the world to us, and so that's what we did. The water was so much warmer than it was down in Wollongong. Charlie even thought she saw a shark or a dolphin!

Shortly after the sun set, the rest of the boys joined us since they went shopping (and Eric bought a huge knife which he named "the gator" - good old peer pressure) and the partying soon began! The Norwegian girls had their first go at the goon bong, some were successful, some weren't so much, but we still had a great time even though there was a thunderstorm pouring down on us. All 15 of us somehow managed to squeeze into the boys' 5 man van and we spent the night drinking and merrymaking. A little later on though, Jake and Eric had a bit of a drunken argument, and Eric ended up kicking the door of a neighbouring van! Obviously the owner was not very pleased, and called the police. They arrived, but only told Eric to go to bed, and that they would come back to deal with it in the morning, so the night died down at this point and we all went to bed.

The next morning, Jake had gone, and I was awoken with a call from Jake telling me that his parents would cook some food for us if we got to his house, so we tidied up the mess we'd left in the pouring rain and got out of there as fast as we could before any other campers could get angry at us for keeping their children awake all night (woops!)

When we arrived at Jake's house, his parents were making pancakes, fruit salad, tea and coffee for us! They even let us use their shower! Almost all of the fruit in the fruit salad was home grown by Jake's family (made it extra tasty) and so were the coffee beans. I don't drink coffee so I can't tell you what it was like, but it sure smelt better than what I'm used to smelling :p

After we were all sufficiently stuffed and showered, we said a massive thank you for the generosity from Jake and his family and made our way to Byron Bay - at last! We had a look around the town, ate lunch (I had the most lush chicken burger), and found a camp site to park our vans. This site also had its own little beach so we went there until the sun set, and then headed back to the vans where we ate our tea and just chilled out together. We weren't going to drink that night, since we'd had such a hectic couple of days, but of course we ended up doing it in the end since it was Matt Barne's birthday! We started out at this place called the Beach Hotel, which played great music - a mix of eighties classics and modern dance tracks. This place closed at midnight though just as Matt's birthday ended, and Noor's birthday began! We bought Noor a couple of drinks (which he had to finish straight away since they were trying to get us out) and moved on to the next club - LaLa Land. It was crap. We went home less than half an hour after we got in. It was just too crowded and full of people who thought too much of themselves. After leaving here, we went back to our camp site and made our own party.

Our first day in Byron was great! The weather held out and everyone had a great night! There was more fun to follow - keep checking for more blog updates :) x