When I last left off I was staying with Scoot and his family where I stayed for a few more days. They all took great care of me and kept me busy. Got to met some of his friends and spend more time with my little boyfriend Cody, his nephew. I'm telling you this kid is the cutest thing and quite a little parrot and will repeat everything. For an eighteen month old he already has a pretty extent vocabulary. The only saying he has trouble with which might be the sweetest thing you've ever heard is love you so when you say it to him you get “sho sho” in return. I swear to god your heart melts! We also had a couple messy nights out and got a chance to explore a bit more of Brisbane night life. Went to one place to see one of Scoot's friend play which was nice to catch some live music, it was a funky little jazz set. The next night we went into the city and probably found one of my fave club settings I've ever seen. It's called the Stock Exchange and they just bulit this whole roof top part so there's bars and tables and big screen tvs and you're sitting in the middle of all the highrises, pretty great view.

After a pretty shaky start in the morning me and Scoot and a couple of his friends made our way to Goldy and went to Burleigh Beach, the last main beach I had yet to see there. I then did one of many switch offs between friends and got dropped off with Herbs and made my way back to Brissy with her where we got prepared for an extremely late night filled with far to much booze. After meeting up with our friend Chief and a few others we had a pretty crazy night where the boys kept us entertained with their dance moves and then headed to another place to end our night. When I say end our night it should be noted that majority of the clubs stay open till 5am with a lock out happening at 2am so at two you better make sure you're happy where you are. I think it was after 5 when we finally made our way into Herb's parents place but of course with a stop at McDonalds for twenty chicken nuggets. When I woke in the morning my body was definately not liking me after the last four nights but in the car we got and headed back to the Goldie to see Shell and Tobes. I was supposed to get on the piss right away that afternoon with Toby and some friends but thought I would be smart for once in my life and relax on the couch until Michelle got home from work. We were both pretty content to chill all night but Toby needed a change of clothes and I still had to hang out with our friend Welby so we went to his place and then to the Casino for a few (because that's all I could handle) before calling it a night.

Then it was friend switch four in four days and caught the train back to Brissy and occupied myself in the city till Lans finished uni for the day and headed back to her house. At this point I was pretty content to relax but when Alana had to make her way to the next town over to coach some little kids for touch football I had to go. The reason for this is it was in Caboolture and if I missed out on seeing this place I would have a few friends pretty upset I think. The group of boys that we hang out with in Kelowna from the hill are all Cabo boys so I went to the rugby fields where they all grew up playing and made sure I took some photos so they would believe that I was there. The next day me and Lans headed to Redcliffe where we had a nice quiet lunch. That is till we had a good scare when a new driver who may want to work on his parell park skills a bit more reversed into the patio and made everyone jump up. The noise scared the crap out of all of us but after he drove off without getting out of his car and trailing a bit of the shrubs with him from his bumper me and Lans could not stop laughing.

It was a fairly early start in the morning because Scoot was coming to grab me after he picked up the one and only Lozzy K from the airport! It was a pretty exciting reunion for us even though I had seen Loz three weeks ago while still in Kelowna. Her, I and our other friend Klompy have been attached at the hips for the last six months so three weeks seemed like a year. We then decided to take the boat out with Scoot's sister Alicia too and headed back to Peel Island where I went the first time I was staying with Scoot. It was another beautiful day and Scoot didn't fall out of the boat this time so that was good. It was a bit of a scary drive back in though because a pretty big thunder storm was rolling in on us and for a bit of it I felt like we were on the high sea. With waves crashing in over the boat and the wind spraying us with water we were all in hysterics because we were all absolutley soaked as we bobbed over the waves. The next day was pretty exciting because me and Loz were picking up our home away from home for the next week and starting our roady with the first stop being Byron Bay. Loz found us a pretty sweet rental for our trip. Here in Australia they have a company called Wicked Vans that our these handpainted camper vans that you see everywhere. We were originally looking at one of those but then she stumbled across this company called Jucy. They started in New Zealand and have now set up four offices here. They are newer model vans that are cheaper than the Wicked Vans. They come with everything you need with room for two to sleep, all your bedding, towels, cd player, dvd player, dishes, glasses, all your cooking ware and untensials, sink, fridge and a stove top. Pretty sick set up that works out to be less than $50 a day. The only catch, they are painted bright ass lime green and purple and have slogans all over them so me and Loz got a few stares driving around. After a late dinner when we arrived to Byron we headed back to the campsite where we turned into two classy ladies as we sat in our bed watching a movie and eating cookies while swigging out of our bottle of wine.

So have I mentioned that I loved, loved loved Byron Bay!!!!! It's going to be a pretty hard place to beat for me while I'm here. I had a great time in Brissy and Gold Coast but they are both a little big for my liking. Byron is this amazing little surf/hippie town that gets jammed with tourists so there's some great cafes, restraurants, shops and bars. Should be mentioned that the beaches are spectacular as well. Scoot came down that morning to spend the next couple days with us so the three of us spent the day exploring around the town and then went to a pretty beach called Wategos. After having my afternoon siesta on the beach in front of our campsite we got ready and first headed to a really chill palce called Budda Bar were we caught a reggae band. Then it was off to the Beachy a bar that I think is packed most nights of the week and has live music. We tried to go there before Budda Bar but had a slight problem with the doorman. I used my Canadian ID that the female security accepted but when Loz tried to use her's (she got a Canadian ID card when she was living there and thought it would be better to take that in case she lost it then her actual licencse) the doorguy wouldn't take it. She tried to say that it worked for me but he wasn't budging so Scoot made a remark about it being shit anyways under his breath. Well that set the doorman off with him asking Scoot what he said and when Scoot said nothing as we were walking down the stairs he started ranting “Yeah that's right nothing, you better walk away while you still have your f*#king teeth.” It's truly amazing how much of a dick people can be when they think they have the power to. When we returned the second time after Loz got her Australian ID he still had to be rude and said to her “Next time don't use your sister's ID.”

The one thing Byron did not deliver for me was nice weather. This was the place I wanted to try surfing but the first day the sun was out but it was hella windy and the surf was coming in pretty hard and then we got rain on our second day. Since it was raining we hopped in Scoot's car and headed to a little town called Nimbin about an hours out. Now for those of you who don't know what Nimbin is, here is the quick breakdown. If this town was in Canada it would be a combo of Nelson and Enderby with very realaxed marijuana laws. The minute we stepped out of the car we were asked if we wanted to buy anything and probably asked another five times walking up the road. We checked out the museum which is pretty much a giant tribute to pot and why it should be legalized which was pretty funny to walk through, it should also be mentioned it's in a little house on the main street. When we came out of there we got asked a few more times if we wanted anything, even by a lady tring to sell us cookies out of a diaper bag as her toddler sat on her lap, pretty shocking. When we got back to Byron my friend Renee who lives twenty minutes away came in to meet up with us and had some bevies at the campsite before heading to the Beachy again, this time no problems from over zealous doorman.

In the morning we drove up to the lighthouse to get some gorgeous views and photos. The lighthouse is up on a hill and is also the most Eastren part of the Austarlian coast. We then met Renee in town for some breakfast and a bit of shopping and followed her out to the next little town called Lennox Head. Was pretty sad to be leaving Byron but I don't doubt I'll be back there sooner than later. After we checked out the Lennox Head markets that were going on we went into Ballina where Ren lives and also where Loz lived util she was six. There we stayed with Loz's sudo family who were her old neighbours there and have remained very close with her family. The lady is like her grandma and is this funny little eighty six year old Yugoslavian who they call Bucca and her son Johnny. Johnny was the head chef of an Itlaian restaurant for fifteen years and now that he's retired he has built a woodfire oven in his back yard which is also home to a pretty impressive veggie and herb garden. Johnny loves to entertain so he invited some people round and Ren joined as too and we sat at the table out back polishing off bottles of wine and eating some of the best pizzas I've ever had with everything except the meat coming from his garden. So fresh and so good !!!! In the morning we woke to fresh crepes and fruit with again most of the fruit coming from out back. Then it was on the road for the longest part of our drive, it should be mentioned that Loz is an absolute champ for doing all the driving, still not sure about my skills on the other side of the road seeing I get scared sometimes still being the passenger. It was about an eight hour trip to Newcastle where we were own our way to see Nat and Joel who just got back home from Canada and Europe.

So I've heard from a few friends that went to see Nat and Joel in London that Nat is a pretty awesome tour guide and she did not dissapoint. She drove us around to all the main beaches and parks, through the city and to this funky little street of shops, bistros and cafes. We stopped in at one of the cafes and then headed to the Newcastle brewery right on the harbour for some lunch. With us making our way down to the Central Coast to Terrigal that afternoon it was too short of a visit with Nat and Joel so we convinced them to come join us there the next day seeing it's only an hour away. We then were on our way to go stay with our friend Alana (aka Slingers) and her boyfriend Cam. They were at Big White with us this past season and Slingers worked in the pub with me and Loz and she was one of my nearest and dearest while we were up there. Terrigal is this pretty little ocean town with the town part really consisitng of two streets. We made our way there that night to get some Thai food. Now I should say I'm a bit of a Thai junkie and have had it quite a few times since I've been here and it's all been good but this place has to be the best I've had. I frequent a little place in Kelowna called Bai Tong and always have the same thing and this place was the closest to duplicating my spicy veggie pad thai, yummy! In the morning me and Loz thought we finally got some nice beach weather again so in our swimmers we got and headed down. Now this has been a bit of a pattern on our roadie but when we wake in the morning it usually is a nice enough of a day but by eleven the clouds or the wind or both role in. As we were lying on the beach we were getting blasted with sand (I had sand in my hair and ears for two days) and decided we had enough so packed up our stuff which worked out to be good timing because Nat and Joel had just arrived. We grabbed some lunch and drinks with them and then they headed back to Newy and we went and waited for Slingers to finish work. Kinda the bad thing about dropping in on people during the week is their life is still continuing as normal while you are in vacation mode.

Now it was time to head to Sydney but before we left and before Slingers was off to work we grabbed coffee with her in town. Kinda sad catching up with everyone because the minute you get used to seeing them again it's time to say bye. When we hit Sydney we had a bit of an experience driving in. After being pretty much stalked by this van of construction guys for the whole drive our GPS who we call Sally led us through the heart of the city in our big van. Sally does some pretty funny things with her directions and it took us a while to figure out why she was leading us all over the place but as smart as technology is she was right again because she was just making sure we avoided all the toll bridges. Once we sorted that out we headed to the famous Bondi Beach to walk around for a couple of hours and check out some shops as well. Then it was off the Shire where my friends Kate and Mark live with their five year old Ava and six month old Lars. So the Shire is this outskirt part south of Sydney and people that live there do not like to be part of the city or Sydney, pretty funny but has some pretty little parts to it. Now it's been six years since I've caught up with Kate, she is Canadian and met Mark there while he was travelling from Australia. I remember the night she met him and she came home and told me that she met the guy she was going to marry, I laughed it off at the time but it's funny how things work out. They moved back here about a year ago and seem to be quite happy and have two very adorable childern. Ava is very aware for her age and a bit of an explorer and I think is a bit of an old soul as well and Lars is the happiest baby you can meet with his goofy smile hardly leaving his face. The next day me and Loz caught the train into the city to Cicular Quay. We then checked out the views of the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge and walked up to the Rocks the oldest part of the city and had lunch at a little cafe and people watched as we were sitting in a bit of a hub with the street markets going on right across from us. Later that night we headed down to Cronulla Beach with Kate for some dinner and drinks.

This was now the end of our road trip so after a quick clean up of the van we said goodbye to Kate and Mark and headed in to drop off the van and meet up with Loz's brother Adian who was driving us back to their house. They live about over an hour down in a little town called Jamberoo and they took me on the scenic drive of more of the coast. After we got settled in here we started preparing our costumes for Loz's friends birthday party. For some reason in Australia the twenty first birthday is a big deal and usually has a theme to it. This theme for the night was international, now I thought I might be able to pull off going as myself but then caved and went with Loz as luggage. She got these huge plastic tote bags that we cut holes in and then covered in suitcase stickers and luggage tags. They really did nothing for our shape and felt a bit silly meeting most of her friends looking like that but once I got to the party my silly feeling disappeared as there was Indians, sumo wrestlers, ninjas, beer wenches and a whole lot more. It should be mentioned that there was an open bar and things got pretty loose. We were in the next town over called Kiama at the rugby club and when things started winding down there we ventured out to the Kiama local called Torys. We tried wearing our costumes in but I lost mine in about five minutes and then convinced Loz to ditch hers as people were grabbing on to her as she was walking through and pulling her around by the straps. At one point we looked over and there was some random guy wearing it dancing on the stairs. Like I said pretty loose night.

Jamberoo and Kiama are in a beautiful spot of New South Wales. It's very green with lots of rolling hills and farmland with Kiama right on the shore. The last couple of days have been spent exploring round here and getting some pics. Today me and Loz headed to the Minnamurra Rainforest that her Dad is the manager of and we did the walk to the waterfall. Pretty spectacular and the most exciting thing happened when we got back to the main office. It's official, I have seen my first kangaroo !!!!!! The funny thing is they are not even common for that area we were in and there it was right in the parking lot. You should have seen my face, it probably looked like a kid on Christmas, I was sooooo happy. We went right out on the driveway to get a closer look at it and then it started hopping right towards us, so awesome. Now it's off to dinner at the restaurant that Loz works at and then early to bed cause we have to head into Sydney at six in the morning so I can catch my flight to Adelaide where I get to see Klompy for twelve days and do my drive with her on the Great Ocean Road to Melbourne. Have I mentioned that I'm exhausted, thanks for keeping up!

SJ