A birthday to remember

Twenty one years ago, I escaped the womb and burst into the world. That's right, yesterday was my 21st birthday - and what a birthday it was. What with twenty first birthdays being such a big milestone in the UK (no idea why, probably something we stole from the Yanks) I decided that I had to make it special, and to do that I decided to jump out of a plane at 14,000 feet.

Like most of my plans, I didn't think this would become a reality when I first thought of it, but I asked around and the four Norwegian girls said that they would do it with me (Noor didn't because he said he 'didn't feel like dying yet')! We booked a week in advance and every day before we went I checked the weather forecast. I was terrified that, like almost every other birthday I've had, it would pour down with rain, which the forecast said it would - and that would mean that we wouldn't have been able to do the jump. Fortunately, the sun was shining and there were hardly any clouds in the sky!

The girls came over for a birthday breakfast of pancakes and then we left! We arrived at the office and had to sign several legal forms ... "I understand that I will be in very close proximity to the tandem jumper" ... "Possible outcomes: death, disability, broken bones, etc." - so reassuring! We then put on our harnesses and had a quick tutorial of what to do when we jumped out. Two seconds later we had all forgotten because we were very, very excited!

A short bus ride later we'd arrived at a small airport where the blue and yellow plane was waiting and the eight of us doing the jump crammed ourself into it with our instructors and then we set off. When the plane left the ground that's when it started to get real, and I started to get nervous, but the fear was soon overridden by excitement and admiration of the view we were getting. When we'd finally climbed to 14,000 feet (about 4,200 m) and just like that, the door was open and people were dropping out of the plane. Surprisingly I wasn't scared or nervous at this point - I was just pumped and couldn't wait to get out there! I was the seventh out of the plane and oh my word - what an amazing feeling. Suddenly all my exam stress and other worries were gone and even though the wind was rushing past my ears so fast that I couldn't even hear myself screaming (which I did... a lot) it was kind of peaceful! 

After a while of spinning and tumbling in the air my instructor pulled the chord and the parachute opened. Five minutes later and we'd landed. Flic, Casey, Tash and Mike had come to see us land, and when they asked how it was we just couldn't explain! The only thing we could say was that it was amazing, but none of us could quite put the experience into words, it's something you just have to do (so if you get the chance, then DO IT!!).

Later that evening, my house mate Katy finally had her charity waxing. At the start of the semester, she asked around and got five of the boys who lived in Kooloobong to agree to potentially get their legs waxed - and I was one of them. People would pay money to vote for whoever they wanted this to happen to, and the money would go towards equipment to teach people to swim in the Maldives because they've developed a fear of the ocean.

On the night, it turned out that Hamish had won (or lost) and had his legs waxed, so my legs were safe. Unfortunately for me, I'd agreed to get my chest waxed if Katy could raise at least $50 on the night, and she raised well over that. Once they were finished with H's legs, I was up. The pain was unreal! I finally understand why Steve Carell screamed "KELLY CLARKSON" when he had it done in The 40 Year Old Virgin.

After the waxing, a few of us who either didn't have exams, or whose exams weren't until next week decided that we should celebrate my coming of age. So Flic, Nat, Casey, Mike, my newly smooth chest and I finished a bottle of tequila, and had plenty of goon to wash it down... Instead of going out, we ended up just stopping on a field near our accommodation and sang, danced and drank until the early morning. It was probably the most drunk I've been since I got to Australia... What a great night! Needless to say I was feeling pretty fragile this morning, but a quick dip in the sea solved that one.

Great birthday, thank you for everyone who made it special :)

Spring Break! (part 3)

After our first, very successful night in Byron Bay, I woke up super early (as in 6am early) because I needed to go to the toilet, but when I got back I couldn't open the door of the van to get back into bed! I assumed that Karina and Noor had just locked me out and didn't want to be woken up (what actually happened is that I was trying so hard not to wake them up that I didn't pull hard enough on the door to open it haha), so I decided to take a stroll to the beach and take some pictures of the rising sun. Turns out I was a little too late for that, but got some nice ones anyway...

After about half an hour of sitting by myself on the beach watching people walk their dogs, I got bored and went back to the vans... Still thinking that I was locked out, I just went to sleep on the grass near the vans (was I still drunk or something?) and a little later, I woke up to Amanda walking past just laughing at me haha.

When everyone else was awake, we went down to the beach again, buried Aristo in the sand, and went back to the boys' camp. On the way back, we climbed up one of the banana trees and chopped off a bunch. They're currently back at Kooloobong with us ripening up! After this, we sat around in the sun while Hamish gave us all a little concert with his accordion (an underrated instrument if you ask me). We soon decided that we should have a barbecue for Noor's birthday, so we went into town and bought the supplies and used the barbecues in the camp site. For any of the English reading, a barbecue in Australia is NOT as good as a barbecue back home! They all use hot plates instead of charcoal. Sure, they have the sun here, but there's nothing like the taste of a burger that's had a little too much time on the coals, even if it is pouring it down with rain.

The large knife you can see Aristo using to chop tomatoes is Eric's 'Gator' ... It's so multifunctional!

After the sun set, we did yet more lazing around until the sun set, and then started drinking again! We went to a place called Cheeky Monkeys - probably one of the best clubs I've ever been to! The inside is decorated like a rainforest, with wooden beams and crawler plants all over the walls, and stuffed rainforest animal toys scattered here and there. Instead of a dance floor, there were a series of metal benches to dance on (something I'd never seen before) so it was great to just have such a different experience of a night club!

Then, as always, we headed back to the camp site and had some more fun until the early hours. Those pictures were an attempt (and a bad one at that) to show the decor of the club and the multi-level-ness of the dance tables haha. I would start writing about the fifth and sixth days here, but there is A LOT  to write about for those two days so I will save them for a separate blog! Keep posted x

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

Charli's birthday

So Charli, one of the English girls who came over from Lancaster uni, recently turned nineteen, so she decided that the English lot and Flic and Tim (her Aussie house mates) should take the train a few stops north to a little village called Austinmer. The only things in Austinmer are a few houses, a beautiful beach, and fish and chip shop.

First things first though, I'm going to talk about the trains. It was a double decker (blah, blah, seen them before they're all over continental Europe), but then we also got told that you can flip the seats around to be either forward or backward facing! Needless to say, all of the English were dumbfounded, and every Australian in the vicinity looked at us funny. When we got to Austinmer we went to the chippy and found out that the standard "fish" in fish and chips is shark! So of course I had to have it. Once it had been battered and fried though it didn't taste any different to standard cod - bit of a let down really! Despite the shark/cod/shod, the portion sizes were huge given that we only paid $10, which is refreshing in Australia!

After letting our food digest for a bit, we went to the beach. At one end there were rocks with rock pools etc, and at the other end there was something which is apparently pretty common on Aussie beaches (probably worldwide, but I live under a rock), which was a pool that gets filled by the sea water. It was a pretty good beach - no one was there because it is, of course, the middle of winter here, so we had the whole beach to ourselves! We splashed around a little, played football (or "soccer" ...) and buried our feet to our hearts' contents until it started to go dark and we headed home.

The following Wednesday night, Charli had an opp shop (charity shop) party - something I'll definitely be bringing back to Sheffield. Everyone looked amazing, and for $10, I managed to get some technicolour boxer shorts that I just wore as normal shorts and a pruple Hawaiian shirt. Unfortunately I don't think anybody got any pictures of me! But I'm sure the outfit will be reused so you will get to see it one day!

Instead of getting the usual 8.30 party bus (which I'll tell you more about another time), we decided to get the 9.30 bus because Flic said so. I was very, very drunk, so I would have done anything anyone told me to do. To our devastation though, getting the later bus meant we missed the free pizza at the Grand! Never making that mistake again! Because I was so drunk and there was no pizza to sober me up, I was pretty much chucked out at 10.30 and decided it would be a great idea to walk home instead of getting a taxi. It must have taken about an hour, and should have just waited to get the free party bus home at midnight! I guess it's just another lesson learnt: Never listen to Flic.