I enjoyed the journey from Melbourne to Sydney, mainly because I realised that this was the most amount of toenails I’d had since I left England back in June last year. Oh the small things. As I sat on the overnight bus admiring my full feet of nails I began to get excited about my cousin Natay coming to visit. She was flying into Sydney so we were to meet her there. I’d told her to bring an extra toenail in case mine decided to fall off again. And clothes because mine are now limited – I’m concerned I’ll be walking around naked soon. I’d already made a mental note to steal some clothes (from Natay not a shop…I’m not a shoplifter).

Sydney (again)

We just couldn’t keep away. Tania very kindly let us stay with and take over her room. Our time here was eventful.  As we awaited the arrival of Natay I went out and got slightly intoxicated. I got home with my broken phone in hand – it wouldn’t turn on and the screen was black.

Me: “Tania – my phone’s broken. It won’t charge (I then proceeded to try every plug socket in the house).Tania look, there’s nothing on the screen, look, look”
Tania: “I think it’s dead Hev”
Me: “Really? Dead?”
Tania: “Yes. Dead”
Me: “But wouldn’t it give me a sign if it were dead?”
Tania: “No. Because it’s dead…”

I woke up the next morning with my Facebook status shouting “My phone is dead”. Apparently it’s very hard to understand the concept of a dead phone on Good Friday after eight glasses of wine.

As it turned out it wasn’t dead at all, I’d just dropped it and put the battery back in the wrong way round.

Then Natay arrived and we did all the touristy activities. She took thousands of photos of the Sydney Opera house, experienced lots of rain, came to visit my Indian family, kicked a cockroach and went for a run after her 20 hour flight and had to have an ELD (Emergency Lie Down) at the traffic lights as she went dizzy and swayed. “OMG are we at altitude?!” she gasped….errrrrr “you just sit there at the busiest junction in Sydney with your legs in the air…everything will be fine”.

And then she lost her passport (not whilst having her ELD).

Byron Bay

Lyvette’s friend Duane and his girlfriend Sophie welcomed us riff raff into their home and let us stay with them. They introduced us to some of their friends and we spent the first night having beers and a bbq on the beach watching the sunset. This is where we met Juan the hot Argentinean and his juicy steaks.

We then went back to Nick’s bar and had a few too many beverages. The next thing I remember was us stealing the kitchen hand, Patrick (he was from Texas) and going back to Nick’s. Then I fell asleep on the sofa. Then Natay abducted myself and Patrick and decided at 4.30am that we would climb up (a mountain) to the lighthouse for sunrise. So armed with a bowler hat we set off. Except I was still asleep. And every time they turned round they found me on the floor in the middle of the road having a snooze. Or an ELD, you choose. Sometimes I even made Patrick sit with me so I could rest my head in his crotch. Then when Natay woke me up I’d have no idea where I was and repeatedly ask what we were doing and why we were climbing a mountain armed with a bowler hat. She’d explain and then I’d fall asleep again. I get the impression it was a long and tedious journey. Then I regained consciousness, mid abduction, when we had to time clambering over some rocks with the tide going out. We just made it, but it was too exhausting and I needed another ELD on Patrick’s crotch.

Meanwhile Lyvette was busy playing basketball whilst wearing a fur hat (Byron has a lot of hats) and deciding which of Nick’s jumpers she could steal. Eventually we reached the lighthouse a good while before the sunrise so we sat on a bench with Patrick in the middle and me, Natay and the bowler hat had a snooze on Patrick’s crotch. Then we had to walk back (I was awake at this point and decided to become the minder of the bowler hat for a while). We finally arrived back at Duane’s exhausted after our all night adventure at 9am.

Patricks parting comment was “If you ever come to Texas my crotch will be waiting!!”*

*I think it’s important to note that we had never met Patrick before in our lives and we literally took him from his kitchen, forced him to walk up a mountain at daft o’clock in the morning and insisted on lying in his crotch. He loved it.

Later that day we were at the beach refilling our water bottles when I accidently bumped into a guy wearing no shoes and a sarong on his head;

Me: “Oh – sorry!”
Him: “Don’t you be sorry! Don’t you DARE apologise”
Me: “Oh, ok, err….sorry….?”
He then turned to Natay;“Did you have the knowledge to do those yourself or did your friend do them for you?” he asked addressing the braids in her hair. When he learnt that she actually had the knowledge to braid her own hair he was flabbergasted, “Wow, amazing. Have a good day girls, love and blessings. Love and blessings.” And off he went on his merry way with his sarong securely placed on his head.

From that day on we started to LAB everyone we met, love and blessings guys, love and blessings. Everybody loves a bit of LAB, that’s what you learn from hippies in Byron.

Surfers Paradise

Myself and Natay had a surf lesson.  This can be especially awkward if you have your tampon string hanging out.

Brisbane

Now what we’ve learned about the bus drivers here is that they’re a bit anal. I’ve actually renamed the bus driver who took us from Sufers to Brisbane Captain No Fun as we were informed of the bus rules. No Food, no drinks, no breathing. Definitely no alcohol or drugs and if you needed to know why then ‘you should to go to a councillor’. No smiling and most of all, no fun. Captain No Fun was a barrel of laughs. It was a good job we’d tucked our tampon strings in otherwise we may have been executed. I was too scared to even attempt to steal any of his clothes.

My friend Flick and her family kindly let us stay with them and their dog Marley (he’s our fave non marsupial). Natay went to the embassy and got herself a temporary passport so she could fly home and Flick told us if we walked in the bush to stamp our feet to scare off the snakes. This lead to me running around looking like Godzilla. We also went to the koala sanctuary so Natay could have her fix of marsupials and we almost had a fight with an emu. Then Natay left us to go home after her quick weekend away up the East Coast.

So that’s about where we’re up to at the time of writing this blog. We’re back to just me and Lyvette and I’m still admiring my toenails, Lyvette is sniffing her stolen jumper and we’re wondering if our next bus driver will be kind enough to let us breath as we continue our mission to steal a new wardrobe up the East Coast…