Byron Bay, Australia: What was supposed to be two relaxing (read: boring) days on the beach, became so much more than that.
It’s early morning and we get off the Greyhound bus in Byron Bay, a small hippie town, after 13 hours. A female staff member picks us up at the bus stop and drives us to the beach, then to the hostel, Backpackers Holiday Village, where we check in. We stay in a 4-bed dorm with our own common area with TV and a kitchen. We are exhausted after our bus ride, so we unpack and go back to sleep.
In the evening, we decide to go to Cheeky Monkeys across the street for a $5 dinner and a free drink. We’re absolutely starving, waiting outside for 40 minutes before the place opens. We get talking to Hannah and Sarah from England while queuing up, and we end up sitting at the same table. Immediately, we realise that these girls are just as disgusting and filthy-mouthed as we are. Score! For dinner, Sharon and I order pasta carbonara. Bad choice. After that, we get our free drink, and since there’s face painting happening on stage, we line up for that, too. People keep skipping the line, despite the four of us being next, which annoys us. When my turn comes, I am stuck with the new girl on the job, so she takes around 40 minutes painting my face. I tell her to make me look like a mermaid and this is what I end up with:
Over-saturated, because the colors looked really shit
Sharon asks another girl to paint her pink and purple, but instead, the girl says “I am going to make you look like an intergalactic fairy!”, so she also gets some bright green on her face.
Sharon, Hannah, Sarah and I leave Cheeky Monkeys after being harassed about not donating to the paint girls, and we head to The Northerner, where a guy is playing a set on his guitar. We get some more drinks, and Sharon and Sarah, who both celebrated their birthdays on Monday, convince the guy that it’s their birthday, and he dedicates a song to them. A very drunk girl comes over to take photos with the Scissor Sisters on Tour (that’s the four of us) and says she “loves” us.
We decide to move on from the bar, and Hannah and Sarah drags us in to Cocomanga, which is more of a nightclub. While Sarah is talking up all the guys to get a free drinks, we are all standing around with our drinks, laughing at her. I decide she is my inspiration in life. The nightclub isn’t really our scene, so we quickly tire from it, and decide to just go to bed. It’s 1.30 AM.
The next day, we all go to Wreck beach together. It’s right next to Main beach, and has parts of an old shipwreck partially submerged not too far out in the water. People occasionally swim out to climb the rudder tiller (that’s what Wikipedia says it is), so of course I want to do that too.
I convince Hannah to come with me, as I am really scared of shipwrecks. They’re scary! We swim out, thinking we’ll never make it because of the big waves pulling us back in, but eventually we make it out to the ship. And we can’t climb it. A lifeguard passes us by to tell us to come back for high tide tomorrow.
Me, failing at life
Bummed out, we swim back, and find out that Hannah has cut her wrist on the rudder tiller. It’s quite a big cut, so we go to the lifeguard tent and get it cleaned up.
For lunch, we go to Hog’s Breath and wait ages for food that isn’t even that good. We are very disappointed with our lunch, so we just head to the bottle shop and buy some goon (Sarah’s never had it before!), so we can redeem ourselves later.
We all go to Domino’s for dinner, as the pizzas are $5! We eat them at the outdoor common area at the hostel, when it starts to rain. I feel a few drops on my hand and says “Guys, I think it’s starting to rain”, and right then, it starts to pour down very heavily. We move in to a more covered area, and start playing Wham Bam Slam!, and of course Sarah really sucks at it and has to drink a lot of goon, and she gets so drunk that she falls asleep in her chair.
There, there
More people join in on the card game – a bit too many – but it’s still fun nonetheless. I convince everyone I’m from Kenya, and I don’t know how.
As the staff tries to get us to go out, we retreat to our common area by our room. We talk a bit to our Swedish room mates, before going to bed. Extremely early.
We wake up early the next day and go to Wreck beach again. Of course, the sea is being super rough today, so the beach is closed for everyone but the surfers. The four of us just lay out to get some sun, talk about Sarah’s inability to poop over the last few days, and check out all the Lances (hot guys) on the beach. We keep having to move our stuff further up the beach, as the waves come closer every half hour-fifteen minutes. We go out in the water and try to jump over the waves, and I lose my sunglasses. We find them, but then another wave washes it away, and they’re gone forever. Time to go shopping!
After buying new sunglasses, we go back to the hostel and fix up some lunch. We find a “dragon” that we name George under one of the tables, and me and Hannah climb over to investigate.
We say goodbye to Sarah, who’s on to her next destination, and we have a nap. For dinner, we have mac and cheese, which on the box says it’s supposed to serve 4 people, but we are left feeling hungry even after devouring the whole thing. We run to Woolies and buy more food, which we eat while having a few beers. We all decide to have a quiet night, so we head to bed after watching some of season 18 of South Park in the TV room.
The next day, the weather is really shitty, so we don’t bother going back to the beach. We’re bored, so we decide to go to the Cinema right next to the hostel, and watch Cinderella. We sit in this small, really smelly room full of kids and munch on popcorn and watch an amazing movie. After it’s done, the weather is a bit better, and we go to Miss Margarita for lunch. It’s a Mexican place that’s always packed, and the food there looks amazing. We sit down and have 3 soft tacos each, and must admit that the food tastes amazing, too.
At night, there is a $10 BBQ at the hostel, that we all join in on. We wait for ages, but it’s worth the wait. After that, we play some cards until we get kicked out and have to go to Cheeky Monkey for our free drink. We end up dancing for quite some time with Harry (who reminds us of Alex from the Palace), until we finish all our free drinks. I decide to go home, while Sharon and Hannah stay until they’ve finished their beers.
On our very last day in Byron Bay, we have Miss Margarita for lunch yet again – their nachos and sangria are amazing, too! – and we finish our South Park season 18 marathon, before getting on our bus to Surfer’s Paradise and seeing the most amazing sunset.
Sydney, Australia: Mom, Dad, I am never coming back.
Going to Australia has always been one of those dreams of mine that I never thought would actually come true. I imagined this Paradise with beautiful people with those amazing accents, new friends on every street corner, kangaroos and koalas, amazing nature – and Christmas on the beach! And it’s only a million hours away from home!
Sharon and I used to work together at The Pink Palace. The year of 2013 was a great year for us, and we immediately decided we would go on the trip that was dubbed “The Husband Hunt”. Of course, there were times when it seemed like yet another travel plan that failed to come through, but here I am, listening to people saying “no worries, mate” and “how are ya going?” as they pass by, and I’m just loving my life.
We arrive at WakeUp! Hostel a bit past noon. My mission for the day is getting a new iPhone, and I need to transfer some money onto my Debit card first. Of course, the internet bank back home in Denmark is closed for the next 40 minutes, so I suggest we go for a short walk. We pass Market City, and end up on the main street (George St), and suddenly, I see the top of Harbor Bridge. We try to follow it, until we end up at the Observatory, where a bunch of brides and grooms are getting their photos taken at the Observatory Hill. We keep walking, and eventually find the Opera House, where a few more couples are taking pictures – and there is even an actual wedding taking place! Since we aren’t prepared at all, we have to rely on Sharon’s phone for photos of the Opera House. By Sydney Harbor, it is warm and windy. People are having expensive lunches with a great view, boarding a giant cruise ship, or watching the street performers juggle with knives and fire with their eyes closed.
As random as it has been to bump into the two main Sydney landmarks on our casual afternoon stroll, we also manage to find our way back to the main road, where we see an Apple store. We go in, and find an Apple Genius and I tell him I want a new phone. He asks me what’s wrong with my old one, and as I explain it to him, he interrupts me to tell me I can get a new one way cheaper if I turn in the old one. We make an appointment to come back 45 minutes later, and rush back to the hostel for my phone. When we come back, we sit down with two older Geniuses, one of them is a trainee. Sharon and I have named the phone Briana, as it seems fitting to name someone who’s about to be buried. So I go up to these guys and say “Hi, Briana died during a tragic accident while swimming with whale sharks, and I need a new one.” They don’t really know what to say at first, but eventually, they make her a coffin (the box for the new phone) and tissue flowers, and we talk about movies about diving with sharks and whatnot. These guys are absolutely amazing and so entertaining. As we walk out of the Apple store, Sharon and I agree this has been so much fun, and so unexpected. I walk out with a new phone, whom the Geniuses name Rihanna, for $300 – that’s way better than the original $900, right?
We go to McDonald’s for dinner, since it’s right next to the Apple Store – yes, I am disgusting, I don’t even care at this point. Then, we head to SideBar, which is a nightclub right under our hostel, and it’s just awkward. The place slowly fills up and groups of 21-year old English guys approach us one by one, and I tell them I’m 29 and from India, which some of them seem to believe. We’re in bed around 2, not from partying too hard, but from exhaustion.
We wake up the next morning, and the sun is shining outside. We are in separate rooms, so we meet up in the lobby and decide to go back to the Opera House and this time I will actually bring a camera. We get lost on our way and end up at the Botanical Gardens, which doesn’t bum us out too much. I get threatened by bird moms, and we learn about different grass species. This becomes a running joke, with us identifying grass and going “this is buffalo grass!” like the true experts we are. Eventually, we do find the Opera House, when a girl wearing bunny ears approaches us and shows us to a venue up a flight of stairs. We hear loud music coming from there and are about to check it out when she tells us that Cadbury is having an Easter event. So, for two hours we sit on the grass right by the Opera House, listening to Hot Potato Band, watch magicians and acrobats, and eat free Cadbury Easter eggs. Heaven.
The cricket finale is on today – Australia vs. New Zealand – which sounds like a big deal. We’re all about doing very Australian things and meeting locals, so we head over to Three Wise Monkeys Bar. On the way, just by Queen Victoria’s building, a little guy with a big guitar is perfoming Shake It Off by Taylor Swift. His name is Ky Baldwin and he is 13 years old and he is amazing. We give him some money and watch him perform cover after cover, until he puts down the guitar, and his sweet, sour-faced little sister puts on an instrumental on the computer. It’s Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, and he starts dancing like Michael Jackson and encourages people to join in. At first, no one does, but then a Lance (code for hot guy) jumps in and go crazy. They dance so alike, the crows goes even crazier! That concludes Ky’s set, and everyone leaves with a big smile on their faces. We even run up to him to shake his hand. And we’re late for the cricket game.
Obsessed with this
There is no one at the bar, despite us being two hours late for the start of the game. Bored by it, we finish our beer and head back to the hostel for a nap. 3 hours later, we wake up and go to Cheers, and the game is still on!! We have dinner at Cheers as well, and it is so good. Go get the chargrilled pork loin, if you swing by. It’s Heaven.
Our 3rd day, Monday, is when I get the travel orientation that was included in my Kilroy package. The Swedish travel agent gives me a SIM card and applies for my tax file number. She points me over to a working agency that I can use when I’m ready to find a job, and Sharon and I head to Westpac bank to set up accounts. It takes 15 minutes, and you’re good to go. Then, we meet up with Fransisco, a guest from The Pink Palace that I don’t remember to have ever met, and he takes us to The Rocks for drinks. As we get drunker, we realise that we’re hungry, and try to squeeze in at Jamie Oliver’s restaurant. That can’t be done, so we go to the Mexican place right next to it and eat the least Mexican food I have ever had. Still good, though. As it is Monday, Scubar is the place to be, and it is PACKED. After a few drinks, I start troll dancing, my new favorite activity. As I am dancing up against this guy without his knowledge, suddenly we’re doing the moon landing together. We turn around, and that’s how I meet Craig from England. A new friendship has been made, even though I tell him I’m from Kenya. We dance up against these Israeli girls that find out, and I think I’m about to get punched in the face. I explain what troll dancing is and demonstrate on someone standing around a table, and the girls start laughing and join in. We stay out till 3 AM, drinking and dancing.
The next day, Sharon, San Fran (Fransisco’s new nickname) and I go for amazing breakfast in Newtown. It’s raining, so we nap most of the day and then go to the Opera House for sunset. I also meet Chris Hemsowrth.
We buy some souvenirs and have meat pie for dinner – another aussie thing checked off the list! On the way back to the hostel, we go to Angel Place, an alley with lots of birdcages hanging over it, and we are disappointed to find that they’re not lit up.
We invite Craig for goon in my 6 bed dorm, which has been empty all day. Side note: my Colombian roommate, Felipe, finally checked out earlier. He has been sitting on my bed all the time, touching me, trying to give me massages and things like that, and he doesn’t understand what “no” means. It got to a point where I kept saying “No, you are weird and I don’t like that” every time he asked for a hug after he just got out of the shower, naked, or when he tried to wake me up from my naps so we could cuddle, or touch my face when my alarm rang in the morning. Well, back to my oddly empty dorm, where Craig has now joined us. We sit there with music playing from an iPhone, play our favorite card game, Wham Bam Slam!, when security knocks on the door. It’s two guys, a Lance and a Kevin (I don’t bother to look at him, because I am so occupied with Lance), and they tell us we’re being super loud and ask us to keep it down. I ask whether they are talking about the music or us, and they reply “what music?” and start laughing. They are obviously just there to see if we’re drinking in the room, but I hide the goon under the bed really quickly, and they don’t find anything.
We decide it’ll be fun if Sharon climbs up one of the bunks and pour goon into our mouths. So Craig and I take turns kneeling by the bunk beds, and Sharon pours the wine and it hits our mouths, our eyes, our clothes. We are covered in wine, and laughing about it for a good half hour, when 5 Germans burst in. Fuck.
On Wednesday, Sharon and I go to Paddy’s market. It’s so massive, we get lost several times. We buy Karen and Koko, a kangaroo and a koala handpuppet. They are both male.
We decided to bring them with us to Bondi beach. We see the life guards that are featured in the TV show Bondi Rescue, and one of them is being filmed. Sharon tells me about the show while we stare at the camera crew. We eventually just roll over and fall asleep. When we wake up, it’s 3 PM – it always is when we check the time – and we go to buy some water before getting back to the hostel. We don’t realise that we’re walking in the middle of the road with 3 cars behind us, as we think we’re on a pedestrians-only boardwalk. Embarrassing.
Later during the day, we visit Craig at YHA Hostel and meet all his roommates – it’s a big male dorm – and his travelbuddy, Andy. We drink some goon with them, and I fall into a goon coma, so we head back pretty early to get some sleep.
It’s Thirsty Thursday and we do nothing all day. I move into Sharon’s dorm finally, though. We have dinner at Cheers with San Fran – once again pork loin – and invent Flip Coaster, where you try to flip the coaster from the top of one pint glass to the other glass.
We go The Royal George to meet his friends, and then go to Ivy, which San Fran describes as a super club. We stand in line for everything, including toilets, so Sharon, San Fran, Tom and I decide to back to The Royal George for more drinks, and finally we have a late night.
It’s Good Friday, which we’ve renamed Goon Friday. The bottle shops are closed, so we have previously restocked on goon, and today, we go to Woolworths (“Woolies”) and shop for dinner. We make pasta with chicken, cream and garlic, because we’re so healthy. We sit in the common area with our food, sipping on goon and talk to our roommate Jess. We got our bank cards in the mail earlier, so we open the letters and activate the cards after dinner. Because of a sleeping girl in the dorm, we sit in the hallway and play cards, and meet some English guys, who give advice on traveling up the East Coast. At 1 AM, we go to bed, exhausted from all the relaxing we’ve done today.
We’ve officially been in Sydney for one week. And we’re going to stay longer! Our hostel is fully booked, so we head to Base Hostel, one kilometer away, carrying all our stuff, in the rain. It fucking sucks. We go to Woollies and buy some chicken and sauce to throw on our leftover pasta, and it tastes horrible. We decide this is one of those bad days, so we head to Cheers, which by now has become our favorite bar. We go to Scubar, where we meet Craig, Andy and Tom. At 2 AM, Tom drives us back to Base, which we’re so grateful for, as we can’t be bothered walking 1 KM anymore. We’ve come so far in one week, huh?
On Easter Sunday, we grab some sandwiches from Subway and sit at the Botanical Gardens and look at the opera house. All the birds are staring at us hungrily, waiting for us to feed them. A plane writes †=♥ and a little kid walks over to us and tries to grab my purse. Cute.
We are so tired for no reason at all, that the walk back to the hostel is so long and weird. We have no idea what we’re saying or where we’re going, but we do it anyway, mechanically. We throw ourselves into bed and have a nap, before going to dinner at Cheers. Yes, a nap and dinner at Cheers, just like we always do now.
At Cheers, we meet Craig and Andy for what was supposed to be a travel meeting, but ends up being us watching footy, and me almost falling asleep on the couch. The beer has gotten to me.
The next day, it’s Sharon’s BIRTHDAAAY! We eat a shitty homemade breakfast and go to the Greyhound Office by the old hostel to buy a pass to Cairns. On the way back, we look for mimosas, which we finally find at Three Wise Monkeys. We have two each, and then we get hungry. We walk around for a while, not really finding anything to eat, so we settle for the McDonald’s right in front of us. For dinner, Sharon has her favorite meal, chargrilled pork loin at Cheers, and the staff today is more talkative and friendly than the Irish guys who are usually behind the bar. We talk to them, get harassed by old, drunk Irish men, and convince the bartender to make Christineth shots – an old favorite from The Pink Palace. It gets us all nostalgic, and we tell the bartender, Ceci, all about it. She must be sick of us by the end of it, but gives us her Facebook for when we get back to Sydney anyway.
We head Scubar, as Mondays are usually crazy. We see a crab race, have some gin lemonades, and then a whole cricket team approaches us, ages 20-28. A bit overwhelming, to say the least. They keep trying to get us to go to a casino, so I fake interest and write the address down and tell them we’ll go after we’ve met up with our friends. Instead, we decide to head back to Cheers, which is now closed. Bummed, we go back to the hostel and pass out.
Our very last day in Sydney, we just wait around for the bus, which leaves at 6 PM. We sit in the comfy sofas at reception and use our last bit of WiFi – which you have to pay for here – and we go buy snacks for the trip. At 5, we put on our backpacks and do the horrible walk to the Greyhound Office, and get on the bus and try to get some sleep. Byron Bay, here we come!
