Panning the Gold Coast

After a lovely few days, Hadley cemented his status in my eyes as god of hospitality and friendship by driving me all the way to Coffs Harbour, via his friend's house (where we were presented with freshly baked muffins and narrowly avoided a full catalogue of his ... erm ... 'arty' DVD collection) and The Big Banana. From there I got the bus to Byron Bay where I arrived at just gone midnight and was asked for directions within 2 minutes of getting off the bus. I'm such a local.

I really liked Byron. Really chilled out place with lots of great surf shops, little cafes, bars, restaurants and a gorgeous coastline. On my first day there I sweated my way along the beach to Cape Byron Headland where I walked up through the bush to a lighthouse and the eastern-most point of Australia. I then recovered from the exertion with some lolling about on the beach followed by cheap dinner and a few drinks with some people from my hostel. I'm not sure 'Cheeky Monkeys' offers the classiest of nights out but it was certainly home of innovative marketing to people with a tight budget and minimal inhibitions, and gave me a chance to reminisce about the decade that has passed since I was the age of most of the people in there.

The next day I spent on the beach and wandering around the shops, had a few drinks and games of cards and gate crashed a beach party before it was time for me to get the bus up to Brisbane.

On arrival in Brisbane I was met by Naomi who, together with her mum, offered further evidence of City of London Choir's antipodean greatness. It was waaaaay too humid to really do much and we had waaaay too much to gossip about so we spent a fair amount of time chatting, sitting under the fan with a large glass of water, chatting, working our way through classic Australian sweetmeats that I couldn't leave without trying and chatting. Naomi drove us into the mountains where we had an amazing lunch with stunning views from the top of Mount Glorious and a nice chat, we rented a DVD, had a chat and went to the cinema to swoon over Ashton Kutcher (it might actually just have been me swooning. I seriously can't make it through a scene with him in it without murmering 'I love him'. I think I have a sickness of some kind). We also did some chatting.

Both Naomi and her mum also volunteered ridiculously generous amounts of their time to talking (and counselling) me through my thoughts on the rest of my year of adventure/worklessness and helped me come up with a new plan about which I am officially VERY excited.

My final day in Brisbane we drove into the city through a truly incredible thunderstorm and I was reunited with Maeve who i'm going to spend the next 2 weeks with. A pancake house seemed the best location to wait out the storm/catch up on the last 2 months/say goodbye to Naomi.

So, having not really seen much of Brisbane but having had a fab few days of fine company, great food and insightful advice, we hit Queensland with the immortal words of a 23 year old I met in our Brisbane hostel ringing in my ears:

"I really hope i'm still travelling when I'm your age"