photo's from sydney & byron bay

hello everyone, now we're in surfers paradise we can post some pictures. we'll tell you about surfers and john's house later in the post.

unfortunately we can't get hold of the minus 5 ice bar photo, but we've emailed them about it so should have it soon.

however, this was in the bar downstairs which was pretty cool itself, just after we'd been in the ice bar.

we've also got some pictures of our final night in sydney. i'm sure by now you know that we went to see lily allen.

the gig was at a weird little fair ground, called luna park. it was very much in the style of an old and very small blackpool pleasure beach, and was smaller than the carnival fair in brabyns park.

this is the entrance to luna park, it can be seen from sydney harbour and it is situated right by the side of the bridge on the north end.

as we said, the gig was really good. and we were happy to see someone throw a manchester united shirt on stage. however, being from london, lily turned out to be a fulham fan.

we got some good pictures as we were stood right near the front.

this is the fairground and bridge at night.

from thursday til earlier today, we have been chilling out in byron bay. it was a great place to relax on the beach and play in the clear sea.

it seems to us that a lot of hippies travelled through byron a few decades ago and never left. it's definitely got a big hippy / surf culture and chilled out way of life. there are loads of quirky hippy'ish shops and cafes.

this is the lighthouse at byron, we did want to walk up there but it's a long walk and it's been a very hot few days so we just admired it from the cool sea.

this is a picture of the snake capture we told you about.

on our last night we took a walk along the beach and got a few good photo's and some ice cream.

now for sufers paradise...

we arrived today at 12pm after a 2 hour coach ride and john and jo met us at the bus station. it was really nice to see them both and they drove us round a bit before headed back to their house for lunch.

surfers itself was bigger than we thought it would be. there are quite a lot of very tall buildings, including the tallest apartment block in the world, which you can pay to go to the top of.

the beach, what we saw of it from the car, looked nice and there seems to be loads of shops, cafes, restaurants and bars.

john's house is about 1/2 hour walk out of the centre of town and backs onto a river. it's a really nice area and the house is lovely. we have a nice room on the top floor with our own bathroom and balcony... the same room amy's grandparents stayed in a good few years ago.

when we arrived at the house we saw that john was flying an australian and an english flag for us. which we thought was a really nice gesture. we did try and get a picture of us all, but had a few problems so will try again soon.

like we said, john's house is lovely. jo's garden at the back looks onto the river and they have a nice little pool to cool off in.

across the river are a few HUGE houses. i thought one of them was a block of apartments at first. both have tennis courts and bigs pools. they look really nice.

grandad (ces) we've spotted a few pictures of you lying about the house, in your fishing gear, holding up some big fish. it was nice to see your face after so long!

that's all for now. hope everyones well.

x x x