Christmas and New Year's in Byron Bay, Australia

After spending 2.5 weeks working in the field in Tabulam, Christmas was just around the corner. Since it was the holiday season - which in my opinion could have been skipped this year, as there are no Christmas feelings at 40 degrees - we had 5 days off. So we said goodbye to the farm and headed to Byron Bay.

After a short search (the campsites were full or extremely expensive), we found a double room in a hostel for $85. In this case, a double room meant that an 8-bed room had a separate room of 9 square meters with a double bed. And the 10 people shared a bathroom.
In Byron Bay, we met almost everyone from the camp who we had more interaction with. Since we arrived in Byron on the 24th around noon, we had something to eat and then lay on the beach. In the evening, we played a few rounds of Knack and went dancing at Woody's. However, it was overcrowded and the music didn't quite suit our taste, so we left early. So Christmas was very non-Christmassy and quite unspectacular. The next day it started raining - the weather was more similar to German Christmas. Since all the shops and most of the restaurants were closed, except for the kebab shop and a pizza takeaway, we ended up having American fast food pizza instead of the Italian restaurant we had originally planned to go to - but at least the price was the same. We paid 45$ for two moderately sized pizzas together.

Since the hostel room became even more expensive after the 26th, we tried to find something else. It turned out that we slept in the car on the hostel car park. So it was no problem to use the kitchen and we could still leave our cool box in the fridge. The first night went well, but during the second night we were woken up at 2 am and had to find a new location. However, Byron Bay is anything but backpacker-friendly - the police is constantly around and charges people sleeping in cars $100 per person. Two other Germans who also used the kitchen of the Aquarius Hostel had told us that they slept in their car at the Railways Café, which apparently is not a problem as it is a private car park of a closed business or something..
Anyway, we parked on this car park to spend the rest of the night there, but we didn't sleep very well. We went to the beach at 7 am and tried to doze off there again, but without success. We then went back to the kitchen and charged our phones (another advantage) and made something to eat.

From the next day on, we were able to camp on the festival grounds of the Falls Festival, where we worked for the following days. So we only had to endure one more night. We spent this night at the free campsite 20km outside of Byron Bay, which we discovered was less than 2km away from the festival grounds when we arrived. Due to the prices in Byron, we were not the only ones who ended up at this rest area. Around 30 cars filled every possible parking space.

At around noon the next day, we met our boss for the next few days, who let us onto the site. Since the day was still free, we settled into the car, read Harry Potter (Tom bought all the books for the e-reader, but this time in English), and had dinner with the others in the evening. Our snack bar was from Owens Oven and sold Asian noodles, pizza, and nachos. We were allowed to eat as much of it as we wanted. However, at 40 degrees in the shade, the appetite for greasy and hot food is limited. However, we were able to exchange food with some other snack bars, so we could also eat burgers, smoothies, and falafel. Tom and I were on the late shift, which means we usually started around 4 pm and worked until 3 am at the latest. On the last day, we worked from 9:30 am to 2 am. So in 4.5 days, we earned around $900, which is quite impressive. Definitely more than on the blueberry farm! Marla - our boss - is also super relaxed and pretty crazy. Among other things, she had a lot of costumes with her, which were used later.

Another funny story was that when we were sitting in the pool at the festival with the others, as there was nothing to do at the time, we realized that one of the employees had already met us a month before on a free campsite. When we were on our way to Moree or Glen Innes, he told us the story of the almost kangaroo accident, and when he started telling the story in the pool, we remembered where we knew Phil from. Phil is definitely a funny guy who is very concerned about making sure everyone is still happy and having fun.

After the festival, Marla booked an apartment in Byron for herself and the three employees she already knew, and most of us went with her. So the 6 of us slept in the living room on the couch and air mattresses and were taken care of for the next four nights. Since someone was celebrating their birthday all the time (on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th of January), there were plenty of reasons to celebrate and dress up. The girls wore corsets and for our safety, there was Superman Tom and two policemen ;D
For a proud $20 entrance fee, we went to Chunky Monkeys, which honestly was pretty bad. The dance floor was tables and benches, from which someone could have fallen off at any time, it was crowded and the music was bad. So after 2 hours, we went back home.
The next few days were more relaxed and on the last day, we went out to eat Mexican food. Tom really indulged himself with tacos, nachos, fajitas, and the rest of my chicken enchiladas.

And now we have finally arrived on the Gold Coast and are trying to find work here.