the plankmeister's interweblet

Sunday, April 7, 2002

Byron Bay : Australia

Had a Big Aussie Breakfast at the bakery. Played volleyball in the pool for a couple hours. Played with my poi. Taught Heinrik (Found out how to spell it properly) how to do the crossover. He's well pleased, and only took about 20 minutes to learn it! It took me about 2 hours, and that was fast, so 20 minutes is damned impressive! He's even made up a couple tricks already. I think he's actually pretending he can't do it when he's really been doing it for years! A while before sunset, Heinrik and I went to the beach to go bodyboarding. Rich and Stuart decided not to go so they could watch a football match. Most bizarre. Down at the beach, the surf was pretty much perfect. Nice sets rolling in, not too big, not too small, breaking just right. With the sun setting over in the west. Over in the east were some really high big fluffy clouds, and the sun was painting them pink, while the western sky was bright orange with tangerine clouds. (Like something out of a beatles song!) It was a pretty awesome experience, I can tell you. Caught some fairly big surf and rode the point break a few times. Linn came down a short while before the sunset for a swim, but left when it got cold. Heinrik and I, though we were having an awesome time bodyboarding, got out of the water fairly promptly after I spotted a couple of stingrays lingering on the bottom. If you stand on a stingray, it has this thing in its tail that stabs you in the foot, so it's not good to hang around where they are. So we left. A while later, we all ventured out to the bakery to get some food. Well, we did after waiting for Linn for an hour or so! Why do girls take so long to get ready? When our food turned up, it was chaos. They'd got the orders wrong, and we ended up passing 7 plates of food around until we all felt happy enough to eat what was on the plate in front of us. I ordered a chicken fillet burger with peanut satay sauce, but ended up with a cheeseburger. Not quite the same... After eating, Rich, Stuart, Pierre (a monolithic Frenchman) and I strolled to the bottle shop to purchase some beers. Which were consumed with great gusto back at the hostel. We played pool and met some new people: a young English couple, and two east-end Londoners. When the security guard came and asked us to leave, the whole lot of us went to the only club that's open on a Sunday. La La Land is possibly the most bizarre nightclub I've ever been to. You pay $7 to get in, and this entitles you to a free meal. (Meal? Eh?) The dancefloor isn't actually a dancefloor, it's just the floor by the bar. The place is filled with big comfy sofas and beanbags and padded benches and stuff, so most people sit down and chill out. The juxtaposition between the chilled out aesthetics of the place and the pumping loud hip hop music was quite bizarre. Did some crazy dancing... (Westside!!! Aaaayyyy!) Much laughter. Heinrich and I played the slap-each-others-hands-as-hard-as-you-can-without-flinching game, which left my hands swollen and bruised and bleeding and severed. Which was nice. Rich and Pierre started playing too, only it got slightly out of hand, and Pierre (Who - I think - is not used to drinking) ended up slapping Rich in the face several times. More dancing. Another beverage or two. Whilst reclining on a couch, Pierre decided to get a little closer... A little too close in fact, and started hanging his legs all over me. Which wasn't nice. Let me paint a picture of Pierre. Imagine a WWF wrestler. A big one. With long hair. That's Pierre. And he was persistently resting his legs across mine. When he squeezed my thigh, he'd most fucking definitely crossed the line. So in no uncertain terms I told him to stop. So he slapped me across the head. So I slapped him back, and threw his leg off me. So he slapped me again. So I slapped him back, but hard this time, getting mightily pissed off. It was at about this point that Stuart threw himself between us and had a few brief words in Pierre's ear, and he got up and left, thank god. He really was starting to annoy the living shit out of me. And Linn, too. She was leaning forward talking to Rich which made her jeans at the back flare out slightly. He was throwing stuff down there... little bits of paper I think. She was doing her best to ignore him, but when he picked up a menu and roughly shoved it down her ass, he once more crossed the line. Linn was not impressed, understandably. I don't think he's used to drinking alcohol...Then I was chatting to Heinrik, and felt a tap on my shoulder and when I turned around Richard offered me a lightbulb. Which was nice. It was still red-hot! Then Linn spent a while trying to plug it back in to the table lamp Richard had sourced it from, and ended up breaking it. DOH! It was pretty much at this moment that Pierre returned, and fell over the table, knocking beer over and smashing a glass. The bouncer was walking past at the time, so I don't know how we didn't get thrown out for that. Rich, Heinrik, Linn, Stuart and I hit the dancefloor again to bust some funky moves (Westside!!! Aaaayyyy!) and ended up at the far end of the bar. Between dances, Linn, Rich and I were chatting, when all of a sudden - mid sentence - Rich turned round, took off his t-shirt and threw it into the fan. Which I thought was hilarious. Throwing your t-shirt into a ceiling fan in a packed nightclub. Hahaha!! It landed on some fat blokes lap, and Rich had a little bit of bother trying to reclaim it. While this was going on, Linn decided to do the same thing with the sweater-type thing she had tied round her waist. And it got stuck. And every time the arm of the sweater flailed past she tried grabbing it but missed. It was just hilarious. The barman didn't think so, though. He was even more un-impressed when Richard threw his t-shirt into the fan again. That time it landed behind the bar next to the disapproving barman. Linn managed to get her sweater back, and Rich got his t-shirt back with a few scowls from the barman. Then I went to the loo. And when I came out, I couldn't see anyone... It appeared they'd all gone. (Not everyone of course... I mean all the people I came with) So I propped up the bar to finish my drink, when Linn emerges from the loo, too. For some reason, she started panicking... like Oh my god! Where is everyone? They've all gone! Why would they do that? Where have they gone? We have to find them! So we leave theclub and walk back up the street to the hostel. On the way, we hear a cry of Fire it up there, Focker!! It's Heinrik and Pierre, lurking by the bus-stop. And Stuart hears it too, from further up the road. So we all randezvous smack bang in the middle of the road. Then make our way onwards to the bakery. Where we bump into Richard. I think that was my 200th pie from this pie shop (And I'm not joking, either). Mmmmmmm. Chunky steak... Stuart bought a large 2 litre bottle of water, and in a moment of madness, Linn snatched it off him and squirted water all over him. And then over all of us, too. And then a big water fight started, in which Stuart bought another bottle of water. I think the bakery staff must have been less than pleased...When the waterfight became boring, and we were slightly closer to the hostel, Richard came up with the absolutely fantastic idea of stripping naked and running down the road. So we did. Heinrich, Stuart, Rich and I all naked, running down the road in formation pretending to be aeroplanes singing tunes from war films. At one point I seem to remember a naked Heinrich picking up Linn and spinning her round gleefully. After getting dressed, Linn said Well... I've never had 4 naked men run past me before! Which struck us all as being funny. Much laughter. Our naked running antics had brought us closer to the hostel, and many cries of Focker! appeared to have woken one of the guys who works there, and he was less than pleased... Stuart then proceeded to have a bit a fit and wasn't happy that the guy made such a fuss about it. Then we all went to sleep. Not a bad send off for Linn and Heinrik! They're off to Sydney tomorrow.