When we got to Byron Bay we though we had just made happy hour... unfortunately for us we had crossed over the border from QLD to New South Wales and there is a 1 hour time difference! So we ended up looking a bit stupid when we lost our argument with the bar tender ;(This also explained why the reception was closed when we arrived - they said to be there by 6pm, and we were easily their by 5:30... Queensland time ;)
After our dinner at the Hog's Breath Diner we went across the road to the Beach Hotel - they had this really odd band playing everything from hip-hop rap to Foo Fighters to Reggae - make up your mind!! This is a pretty decent pub, on the beach, and everywhere is open so wherever you are it feels like you're outside. Its one of the most popular pubs in Byron and was pretty busy, though we managed to get a table and chairs, so could sit down with our drinks and chill out. After watching some drunk being kicked out we thought it best to head to the backpackers - the place was going to close soon anyway and didn't want any trouble.
Next day Ev discovered that she had been bitten by some sandflies underneath & on top of her foot ;( ouch!! This made it a little difficult to get around but she managed. We decided to drive up to the lighthouse and have a walk around (probably not the best idea). There was a hang gliding outfit on the side of the cliff which was pretty cool to watch and once they were done with the gliding they landed on the beautiful 7 mile beach below.
Ev was going to treat Marc to a session of this for his birthday but the weather had changed for the worse by the time we planned to do it :( Marc did his good deed for the day - as we were chatting to the hang-gliding guy, some woman's camper van had broken down, so we went and help give it a jump start. This didn't work though, but at least we tried...
During our walk around the lighthouse we got to see a pod of dolphins playing in the surf and we followed them around the peninsular. We also saw some turtles playing around by the rocks below us. Then we noticed that there were quite a few other pods, and as we headed down the peninsula it became clear why Byron is so popular. The sea was full of surfers, and pretty much every wave was being caught by 3 or 4 people, so there was loads going on. Then the dolphins came round, and joined in with the surfers, jumping the waves in between the boards!!! That's why surfing at Byron is cool!!
We then sat down for an ice cream and got chatting to this woman & her baby whilst we recuperated from our walk. As we headed back to the car, we came across a huge spider, which we can only assume was a maneater ;) We then got a bit lost, going round in circles and taking legendary shortcuts;)
When we finally managed to find our way back to the car it became so hot that we just had to turn the air con on full. As this only helped a bit we headed for the beach for a dip and this was quite refreshing. First we headed to the 7 mile beach which was beautiful, with gorgeous untouched golden sand. The surfers all head to the other beach, so this one was pretty much deserted.
We ended up at a BYO Earth & Sea pizza joint for dinner which was yummy, they make wholemeal pizza bases - this was really strange and fulls you up really quickly. Once done here we couldn't resist purchasing a build your own lamp shade and some fairy lights. When Marc managed to drag Ev away from the stall we stumbled into the Great Northern Hotel, they had a live band on called "The Villain" (although they didn't spell it correctly on their free single cd ;) They were pretty good and it was entertaining watching some of the people dance to their music.
When we finally made it back to our room, there were some girls from Manchester drinking up a storm with their boyfriends. We were asked to join in - probably so that we wouldn't ask them to keep the noise down - and it wasn't shortly after this that the security asked them to turn their radio off or risk being kicked out. Luckily for us they soon left to catch the Manchester game which was playing at around 2am our time.
Next morning we made another stupid mistake - we set our phone alarm to wake up early but forgot to change the time on it, oops!! We decided to check out the Channon Market as we were told that this was what Byron Bay was like in its hey day. About an hours drive inland and when we finally found it in the middle of the forest, and what a weird market this was! It was so hippy with people playing the harp, selling nothing but tie-dye, doing tarrot reading, massages and smoking all kinds! After having a look around we decided to head off to Lennox Heads where there was another market going on.
This market was more like our thing and we gave the sugar cane drink a try - very sweet but apparently doesn't even contain a full teaspoon of refined sugar.
We decided to make a start back to Brisbane and stopped off at Burleigh Heads for some lunch before talking a walk around the Heads. This was a decent beach, but a bit built up for our liking. We also stopped off at Surfers Paradise but didn't think much of it as it was basically a concrete jungle.
Burleigh Heads with Surfers Paradise in the background
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