The first part of the drive is very comical with all of us talking away with the hype of getting to a much warmer and tropical area especially about the part of not working for 3 weeks. We blast the music and sing along! Some of us take little naps along the way while Nicole is driving through the winding roads. At one point she nearly swears of the road with Dean yelling TURN which wakes me up screaming and therefore wakes everyone else up in the car. We all have a big laugh and then Nicole realizes we are on low fuel. We look and the nearest town isn’t for about 20 km. we figured though we should be able to get there no problem so we hoped. We were in the middle of nowhere. We are almost to the town when we are all discussing the possibility of having to push the car into town and then we finally make it in as Lindsay suggests that there is a possibility that the gas station won’t even be open. We pull up to the first gas station (or petrol station as they call it) to realize she was right and unfortunately none of the petrol stations in the town are open. This tells you what a small town we are in, when we stop at the police station to ask what our best bet is he tells us that the man that owns the gas station across the street does afterhours petrol but he thinks he is still in the hospital. We leave the police station and since it is dark and no one is around Nicole forgets to drive on the left side of the road and we are all yelling LEFT while the car is going in circles because she is trying to get on the correct side. It became a pretty crazy and memorable night. When we got to the petrol station to see if there was an afterhours number posted we only found that there was not one.
We ended up having to spend the night cramped in the car trying to get sleep until someone comes to open up the open up the station. Dean and Caitlin walked to the motel, since we were out of gas, to see how much a room will be. The motel office was even closed! So here we were 7 of us all leaning from side to side trying to get as comfortable as possible to sleep. I had the worst sleep of my life because I of course was the lucky one to be in the middle seat. I woke up every few minutes just to find out that no one is there. In the middle of the night I have to go to the restroom so I had to crawl over Dean to get out of the car and go to the public restrooms just a little down the way. I walk alone in this ghost town just on the other side of the parking lot praying the whole time that someone thing like the crazies movie doesn’t start happening while I am out of the car. Luckily God protects and nothing happened and nothing happened all night long. We woke up at 5am and thought we saw a man in the store of the gas station. We called him shadow man and asked shadow man to come out and open the station. Oddly enough there was no shadow man but he finally showed up in his car a few minutes later but he did not open the gas station. Amy goes to the door and knocks over and over. He finally comes out but doesn’t open the door and only mouths that they do not open until 6. We couldn’t believe it that we finally had someone there after waiting 5 hours and he refuses to the open. About 5:30 after we are just sitting there waiting he actually turns on the lights and the pumps. We get gas and are on our way just with a 6 hour delay. About 5 hours more and we are at Sydney.
It was a beautiful day in Sydney. We drove into the city and saw all the beautiful parks and huge skyscrapers. We drove right along the harbor and up to the opera house. It is just breathtaking in person. The harbor’s glow brought such life to the opera house. We took pictures and walked around like real tourist. We then got back in the car and drove the rest of the way to Bryon Bay. We stopped to get a quick bite to eat then I drove for the very first time in my life on the LEFT side of the road. The surprisingly drove quite well even round the well known round-abouts of Australia. The only problem I had was I kept hitting the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal because they are on the opposite sides as well. We got into Byron Bay around 1:30 in the morning and crashed out in our hostel beds. We were all so happy to have a bed to sleep in that we just crashed out. 
The next day was our first official day at the beach. We went down to Byron bay beach to truly enjoy the view, the sun and the waves. The beach was gorgeous with rock cliffs and a lookout point. We took all the touristy type pictures, bought beach towels with Australia written on them and then sun bathed for a bit. Caitlin, Lindsay and I then braved the waves. The water was still a bit cold but amazing. The current however was very strong. It almost knocked me down just standing there. We body surfed the waves onto the beach. It was so much fun and an absolutely perfect day.
That night we got dressed and were ready to see what Byron bay nightlife looked liked. We went downstairs to drink a bit and mingle. We met some Germans, one of which I decided to arm wrestle. I won of course except for not. This chick was one tough girl. We were then off to the Cheeky Monkey (cheeky means sneaky or naughty). We had dinner there and I finally had fish and chips down under. It was really yummy since we are next to the coast n all. The nightlife of cheeky money was quite cheeky. We danced and had a blast. I met some really nice people throughout the night.
The next day I tried my hand on surfing for the first time. The hostel we were staying at had surfboards for us to borrow for free, so instead of getting a real lesson I just threw myself into it. Caitlin walked through the cute, quant hippie town with surfboards under our arms. I felt quite cool. On the beach we went out in the water with our boards and I attempted to surf. I was unsuccessful but it was fun. I was able to surf in on the board laying down on it though just not upright. I then took a nice peaceful rest on the beach.
That night we went out again and had a fun but short night since I was so dehydrated from the daytime. The next morning I got one of the bikes and took a ride our town and got breakfast before we headed out to surfer’s paradise. I absolutely loved this small beach town and was sad to leave it but so excited to move up the coast to see all the other amazing sites. (so many great pictures to come soon and to be added!)
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