cairns to byron bay

before leaving cairns we picked up travis at the airport, a texan we met while in sydney. and so, our duo is now a trio, filled with great stories and amazing food since he's a cook! hehe. we have been heading back towards sydney pretty fast, but have made some stops along the way to check out more waterfalls in the atherton tableland region (where i got attacked by leaches), as well as a repeat visit to agnes water (the best beach in oz for swimming i think) and byron bay. we were supposed to skip byron on our way back and stay in surfer's paradise instead but when we arrived in surfers yesterday, we were quite disappointed with the place and dubbed it mini miami. tall buildings, quite touristic, you can even see downtown brisbane from there. so we decided to leave it right away and go to beautiful byron instead. and so we did, and really treated ourselves to something nice at the same time: a nice really motel room and a fantastic dinner. it was so worth it!

today we get back on the road, and we have just over 900km left to drive in two days before getting back to sydney. we have no planned stops remaining, so these next days might not be so exciting, but whatever! i still think that it will be hard to leave oz and the van behind, although leaving them for fiji is making things much better. i guess i just know that everything is coming to an end... it's pretty hard to face.