Day 58

Wednesday 29^th December 2010

I woke to the noise of banging on the door with the distinctive taste of chicken kebab in my mouth, I opened one eye and greeted the day with a stretch. The person banging on the door informed us that it was 10:30 and we needed to be out of our “King Suite” by 10:00. ooops

So we threw our things into the rucksacks and dashed to reception to be told that the other room we were due to check into wasn’t ready yet. Great. Left in limbo for a couple of hours we made bacon butties and a plan for the day, Suzi wanted to go for a walk along the beach, I fancied a drive down the coast.

When we got to the car we thought that Brunswick Heads would be a nice place to visit, the guide said that this was a “popular tourist destination” so it sounded like a winner. It wasn’t.

Despite the weather being particularly miserable Brunswick had almost no redeeming features, it had a tiny beach and jetty/ breakwater.

With nothing else to do we walked to the end and back getting blown around and wet, it wasn’t the most fun I’ve ever had.

Back in the car we headed back to Byron and found a huge traffic jam, Suz didn’t say anything but I knew she was thinking that going for a drive was a terrible idea, as it turned out, it was!

We finally got back into Byron Bay and with the weather still being crappy we headed to the sales to get me some new shorts (boardies). The shorts were 50% off so I got myself three very jazzy pairs!! Suitably pleased with my purchases we headed back to the hostel for a nap, all that shopping is tiring you know.

I woke up and Suz was already dressed and ready to go, I leapt out of bed (sort of) and threw on a pair of shorts and declared myself “ready!”. Suz asked if I was going to at least do something with my hair and this is the point where my heart stopped beating. I went to take off my wedding ring so as not to get wax all over it and it wasn’t there!!!!!!!!!!

“Suz, I’ve lost my wedding ring”

Suz remembered that I had taken it off in the morning to wash up after breakfast, she watched me do it and thought to herself “I must remember to tell him to put that back on”.

We dashed to the kitchen but predictably it wasn’t there, we asked at reception, it wasn’t there either. My stomach started to all sorts of flips and cart wheels as the reality set in. 8 weeks into married life my wedding ring was gone.

I wrote out a sign:

“did you pick up a ring from here this morning? If you did can you please hand it in at reception its my wedding ring (I’ve only had it 8 weeks)

Thank you”

I put it up in the kitchen and we headed out for some beer. Understandably I couldn’t get my mind off losing my ring let alone get into the groove of the night. However, we still hadn’t decided what we were going to do on NYE and so decided that we needed to try some more bars. We went to the Beach Hotel and waited for the act to come on stage, when he did he was a DJ who played god awful music and then scratched all over it. Not my cup of tea and not something I wanted to endure given my current mood. We moved on again trying to find something else but I just wasn’t in the mood. We were walking back in the direction of the hostel so I suggested stopping in and having a drink or two there. I gave a cursory glance to the reception staff and asked them in a resigned tone “nobody has handed my ring in have they?”

The receptionist to my surprise and delight said “yes” and from beneath the counter produced my beautiful wedding ring in all its glory! “OH THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!” I went on. She told me that the girl who handed it in was still in the kitchen so I went straight there to thank her and give her a hug.

The story goes that one of the male staff had found the ring in the sink and deeming it more expensive than a normal ring hid it in case somebody asked for it. The girl had then seen the sign and somehow found out that the guy had hidden it it went to reception and then back on to my naked finger. Result!!

After this I was in much better spirits and we tucked into a box of red wine in the court yard, we met a couple of Aussies and chatted away until we were kicked out of there at 11. Feeling merry and not wanting the night to end we headed out looking for some action, we walked into a place called the northern, they had a live band on who were playing Black Eyed Peas “I’ve gotta feeling” as we arrived.

They went on to play some Bob Marley, Rolling Stones and more, much more our style.

The band were great and gave us the night we’d been after for a while. We left and accidently queued for two kebabs, another lovely taste to wake up to I imagine.