Family

The fam have arrived!

Sadly, even though I was 45mins early to the airport, I managed to wait in the wrong arrivals hall and so our reunion was a little disjointed, but eventually we all found each other. Arrivals was packed as everyone was coming to meet their friends and family who were flying out to Australia and there were lots of smiling faces and tearful reunions going on around me. 

Once we were finally together again we hopped in a cab to get away from the thronging masses as quickly as possible and arrived shortly at the hotel. They were all very pale and jetlagged and just, well... squishy! You forget how much you body changes throughout the seasons, and comparing their pale English winter skin to my Australia summer skin was absolutely hilarious, no offence guys. 

After they had showered and unpacked I took them down to Coogee to let them thaw out a bit. It was a boiling hot day and they just kind of melted onto the beach in the heat. This was Moo's reaction to this sun...

Squinty mole rat

As per my usual routine, I made them do the Coogee to Bondi walk that afternoon too. Sadly, after only about 20mins, this was the state of them... I felt a bit mean.

Ella was dying of heat exhaustion, my Mum was simply just really over tired, my Dad had blisters already, and we'd totally lost Hannah. Brilliant. However, we eventually found some water and some plasters (and Hannah) and finally made it to Bondi where we had an early supper at Lush. Needless to say, they pretty much went straight to bed after that!

The next few days were a little more successful as they slowly acclimatised and got over their jetlag. We explored Sydney and did very touristy things like visit Circular Quay and the Opera House and stuff as my Dad and sisters have never been to Australia before and wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

We beached, and shopped, and visited some family friends and desperately tried to feel Christmassy in the heat! Sadly the weather wasn't all that great for them as it's was quite overcast and muggy some days, but still a hell of a lot better than the English winter.

Finding it very hard to get it into my head that it's the 23rd December....!

B

Long Time No See, Stranger

A certain Mr Oliver Amphlett has come out to visit! 

I went to go meet him at the airport and after a little bit of an emotional (on my behalf... with everyone staring, it was very embarrassing) reunion in the airport we headed off to begin our intense three week catch up and travel adventure!

We spent the next few days mooching about in Sydney, waiting for Oli to get over his jetlag, going to places like Searock, UNSW campus, Circular Quay etc. As my standard jetlag cure for everyone who first arrives in Sydney (Harry was the first victim, my family shall be the next), I made him do the Coogee to Bondi walk. It's quite a long walk, but the views are amazing and you go down into each little cove and can see all the different beaches. The walk finishes by walking past Icebergs which is a super famous sea pool/bar/club just on the edge of Bondi, and then you end up right on the beach where we stopped for a few drinks at The Bucket List.

We spent some time shopping in Surry Hills and found the most amazing cupcake place called Sparkle Cupcakery which is a very cool little place and the cupcakes are YUM.

We also found a shop with a skate park in the back of it....

...how incredibly hipster. I also found my new favourite shop which is called Service on Oxford Street. It stocks loads of amazing one-off stuff by Australia designers and everything is beautiful and very unique, but sadly pretty spenny. 

One of the days we went to the markets in The Rocks and then headed to right underneath the Harbour Bridge for Oli to do some of his long exposure photography.

We also went to go see Justin Martin play at The World Bar with Harry which was a good night out, and met up with Nelly for a nice supper at a gorgeous little tapas place near home called The Spanish Fly. So strange to all be out in Sydney together!

We leave for our big East Coast road trip early tomorrow morning... very excited!

B

Byron Bay

Lots to report on here, but I'll try to not make this post too long (I know you all only look at the photographs...).

It was a 3am get up for our flight to Byron, and then when we were finally at the airpot, Jetstar decided to cancel our flight. We thought it was going to be a total disaster and possibly losing a whole day of our holiday, but luckily they managed to fit us on a flight 20 mins later to the Gold Coast, which we would then get a bus to Byron from, only adding on an extra few hours to our journey. Phew!

John, one of the Australians, has never been on a plane before (I KNOW....!?!?!) and he got frisked twice going through security, bless him. We were teasing him about all the different alarms and feeding him loads of bullshit about how you have to behave in airports and he was absolutely shitting himself through the whole procedure. Very, very amusing.

John, the plane virgin, getting frisked

The house we were staying in was gorgeous. All open plan and wooden floorboards with an outside decked dining area and a pool. Plus it was only a 10min walk from the beach and town, and was opposite an amazing little café called ‘The Top Shop’ which did perfect breakfast things like banana bread, coffee, smoothies and fresh juices. 

Beetroot juice

The house was only for 10 people, but we were sneaky sneaky and brought 13 of us. This was all great and quite subtle, until 4 more (Josh, James, Emma and her boyfriend Michael) drove up to join us, and then Ahmed and Sam flew out as well, along with 3 boys (Mark, Peter and Seb) who came and camped in our garden in their Wicked Van, and then Josie’s events were cancelled at Uni Games in the Gold Coast and she came to join us too! I think that makes 24 of us in total…. whoops.

Cape Byron Beach was amazing, the sand was so soft and it was nice and big so that you don’t have to sit right on top of another group of people. The sea wasn’t too cold either, and so it was perfect to just dip in an out of. The weather all week was amazing, around 27 degrees everyday, and everyone was looking nicely sunkissed by the end of the week.

Squeaky sand

Byron town is pretty small and is basically full of little quirky cafes, bars, and shops. They also seem pretty obsessed with gelato, weirdly, so loads of Gelaterias dotted about the place too! The shopping was so good and there were just hundreds of shops full of hand made clothes and jewellery. Loads of the shop owners offered to adjust clothing too if things didn’t fit or you wanted it altered, and were super chatty and, of course, incredibly hipster. Everyone just walks about in bare feet and talks about how they’re thinking of adding some beads to their seven-year-old dreadlock….

Night markets

A really nice mexican restaurant called Miss Margarita

One evening we went for happy hour at Balcony Bar which is literally what it says in the name, and is just a little bar which has a balcony outside area which is perfect for people watching. Grace, Kellie, Goose and I ordered lychee martinis which were the bomb. Yum.

One of the days, Grace, Stan, Jack and I decided to run to the Cape Byron Lighthouse to catch the sunset. Google maps told us it was 1.3km away, which was right if you went by road, but we somehow ended up going the cross country route and took several wrong turning and 45mins later we were still running! The last leg up to the lighthouse is just endless steps and sloping hills and so we were all pretty out of breath by the time we got there and had completely missed the sunset, oopsie. The lighthouse is also near the most eastern point of the Australia mainland which was pretty cool. Closest I'll be to home in a while!

The small bit of sunset we managed to catch at the beginning of the run

Another of the days, some of the boys took us in their van to teach us to surf. We crammed nine of us into their Wicked Van and headed off. We went to Wategos Beach in the morning and at first the weather looked like it was going to be a bit cold and windy, but we all persevered and got in the water anyway. We did some practice ‘popping up’ on the sand and then braved the water, boards leashed to our ankles and boys watching at our sides. Sadly, the wind was causing the waves to break in weird places and the undercurrent was way too strong and so we decided to move over back to Cape Byron Beach instead where it was a little calmer. By this time the weather was much nicer and the surf was far better and so I actually managed to get up – only for a millisecond though. You need a surprising amount of upper-body strength to get up, which I definitely do NOT have! Was good to finally say that I’ve been surfing though.

After several hours of trying to surf we had a BBQ on the beach - it's crazy in Australia, they just have BBQs there for you to use...! We cooked up a yummy feast of pumpkin, courgette, corn, chicken, burgers, and some questionable 'meat' sausages. 

Our group was perfect as it was big enough so that everyone could go off and do their own thing if they wanted. Some people went kayaking with dolphins and whales, some did a skydive, some surfed, some stayed by the pool, some kitted themselves out with a whole new hippie wardrobe, y'know, quite a nice varied holiday...!

Kellie looking buff in her kayaking gear

Adam losing his shit freefalling 15,000 feet in the air

We could only book the house for 5 nights, and so for our last night we headed to the Arts Factory Lodge which is a really cool little hostel the other side of town. All the accommodation in in little huts, lodges, cabins, or tipis and the whole vibe there is so relaxed. There's a pool, a lake, hammocks, you name it. There's also some water dragons lurking about which you have to watch out for though....

Water dragon!

So basically, it was a great week and I'm very sad to be back at uni and wearing shoes and stuff... hopefully my tan won't fade too quickly though as it's still hot in Sydney and I'm looking forward to booking my trip up the East Coast for November/December. 

For now though, back to the grind.

B x