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Holiday In Coffs Harbour

We went up to Coffs Harbour and stayed with Tom's mum for time time away.

Trip to Coffs

Izzy - most graciously - drove us to Coffs Harbour to stay with Tom's mum for the week. It started well with us boys making her cry. We didn't think asking her to go snorkelling by Muttonbird Island, the storm blowing a gale and strong rain falling onto high seas, was that much of a problem. Oh my, aren't we the sensitive one? Being bashed into sharp rocks, water down your wind-pipe - really! What's wrong with you? This is fun :-) Boy-fun.

Breakfast, after a lengthy sleep-in, was scrambled eggs and prochetta with mould. Once again, Little Miss Sensitive was not pleased with simply rinsing the meat under a tap before eating it. Nooo! We had to eat the ham instead. 'You're such a boy' - she said. Shmeh...

The second time we nearly killed our Wizzy Little Izzy was on our razor-sharp rocks jumping adventure. We thought it'd be a blast to follow the island's waterline along the rocks. These rocks seemed to have been formed pointing upwards. They were so damn sharp! We did have cheap reef-walkers from the shops, but not Tom. Heroic, well toned and - according to his mother - possibly bulemic Tom had feet ready for the challenge. Izzy had, however, bought the 'girly' shoes with practically no grip. This made jumping over the gap all that more difficult. Tom remarked that her crying was 'obnoxious'; so supportive is our friend Tom.

We walked over the island rather than around it. On the other side was a whale watching lookout. You must appreciate how desolate, bleak and grey the place was. It was so amazingly calming with no one about, standing in the rain. Tom and I made the walk along the waterline (even though some of it was swimming). Some parts were kinda dodgey with perhaps dangerous waves to wash us away. Fun fun!

The leg of goat Sue gave Shara that night did not smell pleasant the next morning. The following morning was spent trying to find accommodation in Byron. You see, we wanted to go to Wet N' Wild in Queensland; none of these buggers had been before (my mother commented they were 'deprived').

Byron Bay

We did not find accommodation in Byron Bay, but recklessly went with a tent in the boot anyway (Wednesday was the only fine day forecast this week). Why did we have to stop in the smelliest, ruralist place we found? It was worse than Shara's farts. Waa! And another thing, I did not really like Tom's driving skills. Not to say he had none - I just didn't appreciate them, I guess... Forget the story about Wet N' Wild - the story of Tom 'loosing concentration' at the wheel and drifting into the left-had lane on the highway at night is far more note-worthy. Bastard almost nodded off at the wheel! Luckily, me and my energy legs were wide awake to save the day and get us to Byron.

Energy legs? The internet Power Thirst commercials have ruined out language and grammar skillz. Did you know w00t was the Merriam-Webster Dictionary's word of 2007? We're all bleeding black with poor syntax and style from our metaphorically-slashed wrists, gushing forth waves of incorrect English use, like so many attention-seeking MySpace Emos. Damn you, EmoSpace! I heard that Jan 31st 2008 was posted as 'International Delete Your MySpace Account' Day. If only...

Wet N' Wild

Wet N' Wild was great fun! We arrived at 3 pm, but it was still rather busy with ratty kids getting in the way of our completely adult and mature fun. Lines reached the '40 minute wait' signs on one of the rides. What is this, Wet N' Waiting? Dad jokes, haha. We rode 'The Black Hole' and the really wide one with 4-people rafts. While waiting we'd comment that 'not everyone should wear a bikini'. Marty went on to tell us the story of his mate's 'pregnant bikini-wearing beach babes' fetish. We were talking kinda' loudly. Ho hum! We all took time out and floated in the torrent pool for a while. Tom decided to stack as many as he could high until the lifesavers kicked it over. He also tried jumping into his ring... while under a low bridge! We've got all kinds of smarts, we do. Who would've thought we'd fit two people into one ring; that was really tight! After 5 pm the park began to empty and the lines thin. Every ride only had you run up the ramps to go again, so basically no waiting. We invented a race game: try to pee while waiting at the top of slides before the gates opened. It was really hard! Some people did not approve, as she sat in front of our 2-person raft. I won a few times, but not that one - performance anxiety.

KFC fatty-goodness always sounds good to start with, but just like eating pancakes: 'by the end you're fucking sick of it!' (that's quoting someone, not sure who - don't want you to think I come up with my own material). After fatty-fatty-good-times was when Tom nearly crashed his mum's company 4wd. In case you forgot: I was the one who saved the day! Yay me!

Free camping

The camping grounds at 10 pm had no one attending the reception. That worked well for us - no paying! We set up out tent somewhere in the middle of the grounds, near some kind of flood-lit stage with randoms beering and chatting. We wanted to go to The Cheeky Monkey bar in Byron Bay for some trashy table-top dancing and booze swilling. They all enjoyed themselves in there but it was far too loud for me. I wandered off along the main street of Byron, passing the lazily-strewn gag-tag groups of djembe and bongo drum-playing hippies. Hippies? More likely to be yuppies doing it rough for a week away - pretending to be a hip local and play it cool. Russel Peters could play this out well in his hilarious Indian accent:

"Hey man, aren't we cool? Don't we sound really hip? We're going to meet all the bitches tonight! I'm pimping!"

I am very glad of something: visiting Byron Bay this time has carved some new memories of the place sans 'The Hurricane', as some had so named her. Hey, come to think of it - this was the first place I had heard of Russel Peters. Kat's friend had told us about him on that last trip here. Wow, odd connection, isn't it?

When I collected Marty, Tom and Izzy from Cheeky Monkey we overheard the bouncer trying to move drunk people from the gutter:

Bouncer - Come on, you can't sit in the gutter...
Drunk girl - You've confused me with your mother!

Sharp response! When we made it back, sleeping on the hard ground was uncomfortable at first but you got used to it. Tom fell asleep almost instantly, while Marty was doing his best to press Izzy's buttons. He got a rise out of her with, pretty much, every second line! 'Would you give a lap dance to a woman in a wheelchair?' - Marty. We were very lucky it was too hot for blankets, since they were useful as ground throws. This was a very good day.

Cookie crumbs and a loud 'pop'

Surprisingly, we slept in past 9 am before rolling up the tent and making a move. We absolutely had to visit the Byron Bay Cookie Company for some off-cuts and seconds before we left though. $12 for 24 perfectly good biscuits. Oh my god, they taste so damn good! Having a quick dip in the ocean was the same as always: annoying lateral current and shitty surf. It was not until we were 30 km from Coffs Harbour that something exciting happened...

I heard a 'pop' sound, then saw green liquid coming from the bonnet. Yep, the temperature guage was as high as it went. We were overheated! As soon as we stopped the 4wd, steam began bellowing from the engine. Tom was not happy with this at all. Then guess what, it started raining! We waited in the car for the NRMA, playing D&D to pass the time. Boring story short: made it home and had some iced coffee frappe. Entertaining day. This all started as we passed Bald Knob Road - hehe! Knob!

On the topic of being a knob, Marty defined his list of booty-call rules:

  1. Don't talk too much
  2. No cuddling after
  3. Don't eat my bacon

He did specify that anyone else would be allowed his bacon - friends, family, other - just not the booty-call'ed one. Generous, eh? We finished the day with a game of risk, during which most card-related rules were broken. This meant one may hold all the cards to trade in for over 100 units. First I had South America, the didn't anymore - Izzy expanded - Tom expanded - Marty fell back - Tom romped on, pushing Izzy off the map and Marty into Australia - Marty had 5 units left, took all the remaining cards, added 106 units to one territory, then pulled off a rolling attack that wiped the board clean! Not even sniper units (single man in one territory) had a hope in hell - it was all over. Rules be damned!

Double-back full-twist

Do you like lazy days? What do you feel when tomorrow has no plans to make you leave the house? It felt really great after all the excitement this week to have a lazy Friday. Jetty jumping and James Bond was all that needed doing. Can you believe Marty did a double back full twist? Duuude! The water was still murky under the jetty. Most of us had fun swimming, but not everyone. Even with another rough and tumble exit from the harbour I somehow managed to pose for the camera, even under a face-mask. Tom's favourite burger shop made up for the continuing bad weather - tasty stuff!

One more thing that just didn't seem to fit anywhere else in our story: the Vag Cave. We found a cave on Muttonbird Island that, from just the right angle, looked like a vagina! Hehe!

Mosquito bites

On the return to Sydney, Tom made sure to let us all know how annoying his one mosquito bite was, and how much worse it was than all of Izzy's. Oh us-boys and our friendly jabs.

PS: some photos that I really wanted to add somewhere but didn't fit...