The wind blows at precise rates when I have my ice skates on

Sorry its been ages since I have written. I have just gotten to Byron Bay, decided to skip Surfer's Paradise since its know as the plastics capital of Australia. Apparently all the ladies are plastic and in order to get into clubs you have to pay cover and wear real clothes and shoes. And unfortunately for me my uniform is flippy-floppies and boardies only. Rhondo and Nico went and they liked it ok, but Rocko and I decided to stay in Brisvegas and I don't regret it at all! Brisbane was amazing. I honestly could live there. Its got so much to do.
IF YOU READ MY LAST POST SKIP THE NEXT 2ish PARAGRAPHS. I DONT KNOW WHAT WE ARE YELLING ABOUT.
The lagoon was lovely, its called Streets Beach. Fitting title. Looks out over the river. That was our first stop the day we got there. Rained like crazy though, and we had to take cover under the BBQ area. Anyway my first night there I already wrote about I think. Rocko, Phoebe, Katie, Billy, Timo and some other ppl we met went over to the Bunk bar and played ridiculous games and then went to the Down Under bar where we watched the men dressed up as ladies compete for some special title. Aussie boys love to dress like girls for ladies nights, anything for cheap drinks apparently! Too funny.
Rocko and I got home late, but I definitely did write about this already...
Met up with Kirk the next morning at 9, we went on the walking tour with Rocko, Carla, Jack and JJ. But it was well bad. Left the tour after an hour and went to the botanical gardins. Gorgeous. Mom would have loved it. we ate tim tams and nutella for lunch. Im a great dietitian. Ha.
Just looked at my last post. Already wrote stuff along those last few lines.

New info starts here!!
That night we looked for live music in the West End, walked about 7km to get there and it was just an open mic night. ANd the guy told us way better live music wa sin the valley. where our hostel is. Really? haha but we had a chilled out evening anyway. The next morning I moved out of Bunk and into Kirk's place. Thank you Kirk for free accomodation!! It was a really nice place in Kangaroo point. An old Queensland style house. It was so nice to be in a real house! and his housemate Al was really lovely as well. It was his bday when we were there and he didnt even tell us until the next day, so sad! I met up with NJ and her adorable son Macsen and she tool us to Mount Coo-tha lookout, Just up a mountain and it has an amazing view of Brissie. We chilled out there a while and took photos. Then we went to another Botanical Garden. Even nicer than the one in the city. It had a cactus room and a japanese style garden among other things.
We agreed to meet up with NJ and Jason (her brother who I also met in Cairns) for a BBQ in South Bank. I forget what we did the rest of the day, I think we just made kangaroo burgers to cook at the BBQ. 7$ for 1kg of meat! neither of us had made burgers from scratch before but they turned out fab. We made like 12 burgers i think. At South BAnk it took a while to find a free BBQ but we did and had such a feast! Corn on the cob, squash (which ppl here called pumpkin, aka acorn pumpkin, butternut pumpkin, etc), and we had real wine, not goon! But we werent allowed to drink in teh area. The cops came and busted us, they were like "we could fine you 100$, rah rah rah". But they didnt. Yay. Anyway we swam until the lagoon closed at midnight. Lovely.
The next morning Kirk and I decided to take the train to a beach. We decided on Manly beach. The city train in Brissie goes all the way to Mooloolaba which is like an hour and a half away. Really cool. So we went to Manly. we were running late for the train so we ran to catch the bus to the train station, and then our train was cancelled and we had to wait an hour for the next one, waste of a run! oh well. the train was full of school age kids. atrocious uniforms. like straw hats and frumpy dresses for highschool girls. and i thought ottawa catholic schools had ugly uniforms! nothing compared to here. and they were light colours so the girls all had wicked sweat marks. so unfortunate.
anyway, when we got to manly it stank of fish and sulphur. not a swimming beach at all. so we picknicked at the marina. along the way we found some nuts off a tree that looked like a mix of a macadamia nut and an almond. so obviously we ate one. Our tongues went numb and the taste of the nut was proper minging (Welsh for terrible). we also started to feel a bit ill. smart move to eat a nut off teh ground, right? no, never again. we spent a half hour trying to find someone who could identify the nut to see if they were poisonous. we didnt mention that we ate it to anyone though, lest they think we are weirdos. no one had a clue what the nuts were. The Numbness wore off and I felt less sick after some lunch. Im still alive too!! No drama.
We went home for dinner and ate roo burgers. We ate roo burgers every day for next the 3 days. love it. we watched Iron Man out on the back deck until his laptop died and we went inside to finish the movie but just fell asleep by accident.
NExt morning we rented a car and headed to Gardener's Falls. Unreal. I learned to backflip off a rope swing! There were 2 rope swings one was super high. teh super high one was super fun. We decided to climb up the tree the rope swing was attached too, because we saw a kid on Youtube do it. Kirk thought it might be unsafe so I offered to go first. I took a sec to psych myself up for it and jumped. the key was to jump out far enough to miss the rocks and bushes below. I did it! I bruised my tailbone and sternum though. As well as completely bruise my upper arms and legs. I guess I landed wrong as i was trying to flail enough to make it past the rocks. I lived though, only minor internal/external contusions. I still cant sit down right. I have to lean forward.
Next we drove to the winery. It was Called "Something Mountain Winery" according to Kirk. He just looked it up and its actually called Melany Mountain WInery. We tested 4 wines and a delish spirit that tasted just like Bailey's. so good! we bought one bottle of cab sauv. so good.
I drove us to Mooloolaba. So weird to drive on the wrong side of teh road. But we lived. We went body surfing in 5 ft waves. It was awesome. I had never heard of body surfing. you just start swimming with the wave and if you hit it right you can keep your body on it and coast. If you swim to slow or hit it wrong you get smashed around by the wave. I would say its like being in a washing machine. I was scared teh first time it happened because it takes a while for the wave to spit you out. but you get used to it. You also get used to the idea of swimming with sharks. its so not that scary, they arent all that interested in people, and dont really come close to the beach until sunset/nightfall to feed. I havent seen any but the lifeguards say they are around.
We visited the infamous mooloolaba backpackers and then went for sushi. Bought a cakemix to make for Al.
We drove back to Brissie around 630pm and made the cake for Al. The gas oven didnt work so Kirk's landlord cooked it for us. So nice of her, she's a middle-aged lady with a chinese/british accent. she brought beers and we had cake and VB. Random, but fun.
The next morning we went to Hillsong church and returned the rental car. It was so nice to go to church, great music too, obviously. Next I packed up my stuff and walked to the bus station. My bags were so heavy. I ended up deciding to take the bus from the downtown station instead of bunk, but there was a mix-up and as I was arriving I saw the Oz bus leaving. I freaked out and called Oz and the girl said she would call the driver and see why he was so early. I waited until 130 (when the bus was supposed to come) and then called Oz and said I was taking a cab to Bunk. she assured me the bus wouldnt be at Bunk until 135. I got there and no bus. I waited until 2 and then started to cry. I had missed teh bus and the next bus was in 2 days. Kirk had decided to join us in Byron and had already left from Downtown. So I was stuck, no Rocko, no Lindsay girls either, they got to teh bus on time. But so did I! Just not early. Then the Oz bus appeared from around teh corner!!! Turns out Rocko had called kirk to see where I was and he said i was dowtown so the bus had left bunk early to get me. Then when i wasnt downtown rocko asked to just swing by bunk again to see if i had gone there! I was so so so lucky she did that for me.
We arrived in Byron Bay last night at 6, in new south wales there is no daylight savings time so I had to change my watch. weirdos. THe girls and I made a sweet dinner together of sausages, salad and pasta. So good, I love family style meals. Such a treat. stayed at the YHA last night, cost 36$! Oy, so pricey. switched to aquarious this am, way nicer and just 32$ for an 8bunk. and all 5 of us could stay in the same room.
Going hang-gliding today at 1pm, will try and post again later to say i am still alive. Its carla's bday today so we are going to see some live music with her and her boy. Then rocko's bday tomorrow, I am going to get her a cake right now!
Love you family.
Big congrats to Matt and Carlos, I love you both so much and you two are perfect together. Please wait until I get home.
Oh i randomly skyped Rachel since i knew Becky, Rod and Daph were visiting (it was 1am here, i stay up too late...) and then Matt came online so i added him to our convo and it turned out hom and carlos had literally JUST gotten engaged! he was about to call Rach! So random. Love it.