We drove from a sunny Gold Coast, to a not so sunny Byron Bay. It was an easy stretch of 90km on the pacific highway, only taking an hour. As it was overcast and rain showers, I don't think the Bay looked as good as when the sun shines. There were quite a few surfers about, but the waves weren't nearly as big as in surfers paradise. We got out of the car and had a walk around through the shops and around the bay.

As the afternoon went on, the rain got progressively worse and it was just miserable being out in the rain. We bought some stuff from the supermarket and went back to the car to start cooking up our dinner. We boiled up a cup of tea first then as the camper next to us started cooking their dinner, we cooked ours up there too. We were parked up in an area near the beach that clearly stated no camping. We figured that we'd just cook dinner here now, then move the car later on in the evening.

A car pulled up right next to us while we were doing dinner and a guy got out and looked at us. I thought he was a park ranger or someone like that, then he got a beer out of his boot and started drinking it sitting in the boot, random. At least we didn't have to worry about him being a ranger or something. He was probably looking at us wondering what we were doing! Then he offered us a beer and we started chatting to him, Dave from Brisbane. He came to Byron Bay for a weekend away on his own as his mates let him down. He was actually a good lad, we chatted to him throughout dinner, then afterwards, we all decided to go to the pub around the corner. We said we deserve one night out in Australia considering we're staying in the car, so saving money that way.

We got changed the public toilets and headed to the bar around the corner. It started pouring hard again, which I guess to see rain here in Australia is not too common. There was a band playing live music though, so it was packed and there was a good atmosphere. Dave wanted to look after us and buy us a few drinks as he said when he came to England, people looked after him and he wanted to repay the favour, which was kind. We ended up staying there until they chucked everyone out. John and Dave played games of pool with some other Aussie guys they met and John won most of the games as usual. I chatted to some other Aussies that we met along the way. It was a really good evening, and once everyone had a taste for beer, they wanted to go to a nightclub. We all decide to go along, but I didn't bring my ID, and when we got in ghee queue, they asked for mine. So of course that was the end of our evening. The rest of them went clubbing, and John and I went back. As we'd been drinking, we had to leave the car parked where we were and hope that a ranger didn't come along.

In the early morning, we got woken up by a loud knock on the door. So unfortunately, it was the ranger angrily telling us we could get an instant $100 dollar fine per person and one for camping the car illegally. Dave also had the ranger knock on his door, along with all the other cars who parked up for the night. The ranger told us to clear up the mess around the car even though we hadn't made it and luckily we avoided getting fined. That's a close call two nights running now, we'll have to be more careful in future. Dave was a bit worse for wear and said he had a really random night. I'm glad we didn't end up going to the club to bd honest. As the ranger asked us to move on, we didn't want to risk staying there any longer. So we said goodbye to a still drunken Dave, and went to find somewhere else to park up. I did feel bad about just leaving him there on his own as we said we'd spend the day with him, but he wasn't in a fit state to do anything other than sleep. The weather was still dreary anyway, so it's not like we could hang out at the beach or anything.

Cape Byron Lighthouse- Australia's most easterly point

Although the weather was crap, we did want to visit the lighthouse at Byron Bay as it's Australia's furthest east point. We drove up there in the car and were going to park up, however, the ranger said it would be $7 dollars for the pleasure. We didn't want to do that, so just drove around the car park and out. Luckily, we found a spot on the way out that was free to park, so we just parked there and walked back up to the lighthouse in the rain. It was miserable so we walked up, had a quick walk around to take some pictures, and then went back to the car. We ate some lunch before setting off on our road trip towards Sydney again, not knowing where we're going to stop yet.