Michelle and Brent

Friday April 25, 2008 noonish

Hello again!
We are now in Byron Bay, Australia. It is up near the border of New South Whales and Queensland, on the east coast. It is a small town based around the beaches, and the tourism that they bring in. Very nice here, but very busy as today is a public holiday, ANZAC day (their version of remembrance day). We managed to find a nice backpacker hostel that could accomadate us for 4 nights, as most were full due to the long weekend. We are about a 2 minute walk to the beach which is excellent!
We arrived here yesterday afternoon after 3 days in Surfers Paradise (town name, but also the truth). This place was awesome, the beaches were spectacular, and the waves were amazing. I took a beginners surfing lesson, which was 2 hours, and I must say that I was at the top of the class...I showed those 10-12 olds how its done!
The beach was miles long, as the whole way along the coast it is covered with hotels, and not just motels and small hotels, but huge skyscraping hotels! The streets were packed with people, shops, bright lights, attractions like haunted houses and bungy swings. It sort of reminds me of Niagara Falls in the summer, but with a beach. We really enjoyed it there, but decided to check out this beach town a little further south as well.
The water is quite refreshing at both beaches, and the sun has been shining pretty much the entire time, which is a nice change from the days of rain in Sydney.

Now that we have reached the small town Byron Bay, with no skyscrapers, and a much more relaxing, young person vibe (Surfers Paradise was mostly vacationing families), we have decided to spend our last few days of our vacation here. We fly back to Sydney on tueday morning, bright and early at 6am. From there we will head even further south to my friend Grant's place in Wollongong where he is at teachers college. After spending tuesday night there, we will take a train back to Sydney (only one hour, suburban train) on wednesday to spend our last night at my cousin's place again before embarking on our 2 day flying adventure back around the world to canada.

We will definately blog one more time before arriving home, but this is fair warning to everyone to get ready for our return!

In the meantime, we will enjoy the sun and the surf for a few more days, and we are looking forward to the comfort of our own beds in one weeks time.

Brent