Easter, Trail Ride and Surfing

Hey everyone,

So, this might be a long one. I know I went over my update biweekly rule but I think you will survive Streff. So, we flew to Sydney on the 26th and left on the 29th. In Sydney we stayed in a hostel with 3 Brits. They were really nice and we helped them celebrate their last night in Sydney.

Easter - Well, we decided the night before to go to the church right by our hostel. It turned out to be an Anglican Catholic Church. It was over 2 hours long. When I say over 2 hours, I mean we left before communion and that was at the 2-hour mark. There were so many people, you couldn't tell which one was the priest. It was a pretty elaborate mass. After that all we wanted was a good Easter buffet. Well we found a cafe that looked ok on the outside but when we got in, I swear the only words our waitress could say were, 'I don't know.' We did a lot of pointing to the menu too. So, we ditched that place and went to Wollworths for a frozen pizza to make later at the hostel. We played cards til supper time and went to put the pizza in and we couldn't find an oven. Turns out there wasn't one and we had microwave pizza instead...just a little soggy but otherwise good.

We started out trip on Monday and had many disappointments. No wine tasting, no astronomy tour thingy. On Tuesday we did go horse back riding in Bingara. It was soo much fun!! I can't believe I've never been on a horse before. My horse's name was Nicky, michelle's was Eadie and sara's was Stella. Mine was supposed to be a slow one but it liked to pass people and ride real close to them and stick it's head in others' butts and it ran whenever it felt like it and once it kicked another horse. Sara's just went where ever the hell it wanted...including running sara into every tree branch it could find...good thing they made us wear riding helmets. Everytime I saw Michelle, she was galloping by, which wasn't necessarily a good thing. Don't worry, I have pics and will post them when I get home.

Wednesday we prepared for a long day on the bus. Our tour guide (usually the driver but our bus broke down and had to hire a new one with a driver already) is really crazy. Her name if Foggy. She flashed people and woke us up last night because she went skinny dipping at the pool at our hostel at 3 AM...gross!!! She talks way too much and too loud and likes to be called "Fogg-Off" or "Fogg me sideways"...totally weird I know. We waited in Inverell for like 2 hours because the new bus we were on had bad breaks. We were all pretty fed up with everything by then. We got to Byron Bay, where we will be staying til Sunday, at about 6ish. We went out to Cheeky Monkeys for supper. It is a huge backpackers pub. The chicken wraps were sooooo amazing. The chips were the best I've had since I've been here as well. We were home by 11, when everyone started dancing on the tables. There were a lot of games and free pitchers of beer given away to the Oz Experiencers. Ask Michelle how she won a 24 hour surfboard rental...ha ( we have pics to prove it...very funny)

We got up early today (Thursday already...wow) to go SURFING!!! I can't believe we've been here so long and haven't been surfing yet. Now we can finally say we went. At 10 am Michelle, Sara and I went with Marc ( a guy on our bus from Amsterdam who we hang out with all the time) and some other girls from our bus. We took lessons from BlackDog Surfing. Our instructor was a typical Australian...tan, shaggy hair, strong accent and of course a cutie! We got our wetsuits and rashies and headed out to the beach. We were taught the basics like parts of the board and how to stand up and get off and stuff like that. We then went out to give it a go. It was actually easier than I thought. Evan ( the cute one) and Jason were helping us by giving us a push into the wave so I thing that made it easier. We bought pics so I'll post some. I want a board now....good decoration for when I get home. It was like a 3-hour lesson and we are pretty tired now. After surfing we walked around Byron and did some shopping and checked out the town. I am glad we are staying til Sunday. It seems like a great little town. We don't have transportation out on Sunday yet so we'll see what happens. All of the Oz buses are like totally booked and it is really crazy so we will probably have to look into catching a train out of here.

Tomorrow we are going to Nimbin. From what we here, it is an alternative town...with a bunch of hippies. It should be fun. It is like a 3-in-1 adventure tour. Saturday we plan to hire some surfboards and try that again and other than that, its about it. I'll try to update again, as we seem to be heaps busy.

Miss you all lots and luv ya tons.

hilary

and michlle says hi too!