Byron Bay

I have been the All Ireland Snowboard champion for the last 6 years now and also having extensive Wakeboarding skills, presumed I would jump on the surfboard and be riding 20m waves within about thirty seconds, springing over sharks and dancing with dolphins...

Well I didn't. In fact I "wiped out" about 49 times and still have salt water pouring out of various orifices.

The problem with surfing is the fact that it is not only about your ability, but about the waves playing ball too. So you find yourself paddling around for hours waiting for that killer wave only to find that it either never comes or comes along and breaks about 10 metres behind you causing you to be drowned in tonnes of foaming water and making you do underwater sommersaults like a demeted russian gymnast as the wave rolls over you.

Otherwise it was great fun, with a good crew of people, decent food, campfires on the beach and lots of late night drinking. I also saw a real live kangaroo whilst going for a pee in the bush. Nothing prepares you for seeing an animal in the wild. They are just more "real", no matter how much TV you've seen or how many times you've been to the zoo, the first time you see a 2 meter creature hop out from behind a tree is still a thrill. We stared at each other for 30 seconds and then he hopped off quite unimpressed with my pouch.

This is one of the strange things about Oz, it all looks familiar - roads, bungalows, trees, road markings, white people, but then you look around and see parrots climbing in the trees around a carpark, look out to sea and see a pod of dolphins frolicking in the surf or go to the toilet and find a spider the size of Nebraska licking its lips at you in the corner.

The other hugely disconcerting thing is the orderliness of Australia. Forget your images of Crocodile Dundee and the hard drinking miners, the average Australian is as orderly as a Swiss Bureaucrat. I mean this is a country where it is forbidden TO BE DRUNK IN A PUB!!! Yes, I kid you not. I have already witnessed two people I knew being expelled from a bar for being "visibly" inebriated. If brothels were legal here I would love to know if having an orgasm would also be forbidden. It is a country where the bus drivers explain how to use the bus, telling you to hold on to the seats or overhead luggage racks while walking up and down the aisles, because otherwise you might injure yourself. One guy even told us to close the toilet door like it was "a nursery door", to avoid waking other people up. Smoking is prohibited in public buildings and it is illegal to drink booze on the streets in most places. On the tourist immigration form it even asks you if you have a criminal record. I met an Irish guy in Laos who actually said to the immigration official "Why, I thought I didn't need one anymore to get in?".

Fricking nanny state.

Off to Fraser Island tomorrow for a spot of 4wd driving.