Advertisement
Published: June 11th 2007
Edit Blog Post
We arrived at Byron Bay a little after lunch time and headed straight to see the beach, which is absolutely stunning even compared to all the ones I have seen up the coast so far. If you haven’t heard of Byron Bay before it is well known by all travelers that come to Australia for its amazing beaches, great nightlife and even better surfing!! Well the later is what I’m here for mainly but I hoped try out all three!
Unfortunately it was a little to cold to sunbath or swim so we walked around town. It felt really strange seeing loads of people everywhere, all the places we have been to since leaving Sydney have been so empty either because there small coast towns or because its winter and consequently out of out the tourist season. I felt like I was back it S.E.Asia in a funny kind of way because there were more travelers and tourists here than locals, also it is very hippy orientated with lots of people walking around with dreadlocks.
While we walked around town trying to find a campsite we stumbled upon a hippy market, this was very different to any market I have
ever been to before. There was a group of about 30 people all sat around playing drums and stuff while loads of other people (most with deadlocks) where in the middle dancing away to the beat of the drums and all looking of there faces.
There were loads of stalls everywhere selling organic foods, produce and clothing made of hemp but all we bought was a cheap veg curry as we were starving.
We found a nice campsite a kilometer out side of town only a minutes walk from the beach and managed to set our tent up in a quite little spot under loads of trees. That evening we walked into town to explore the night life, we had a very expensive drink at the beach hotel which I savored every drop while watching this massive TV showing all these amazing people surfing and doing tricks I didn’t think possible until I seen it.
Emily and I carried on around another few bars but were really surprised to find the hardly anybody out and about, from all the people we had seen in the day I thought there would be loads of people out in the evening. We
The lookout at Cape Byron
This is where we saw all the whales ' Breeching' did however meet up with a couple from the campsite we had met earlier, so we all sat around drinking and laughing with them for the rest of the evening as they had been around Asia before coming to Oz so we all had loads to talk and laugh about.
The next day I spent on the internet trying to catch up on about 3 weeks worth of emails and getting a pink slip sorted on my car, which developed into having to get 3 new tires as well. I had forgotten why I hated owning a car, I love the fact to going anyway anytime but oh how I hate paying out money on it! Well this took most of the day which left a little time to head to cape Byron which is a protruding section on land on the east of Byron bay. There is a very beautiful little walk up to the lighthouse and then down on to the lookout that looks back over Byron bay and out into the sea. While we were waiting there I noticed a huge white splash. We ran the finally distance to the end (which also happens to be
the most easterly point of Australia) and waited there and again we seen it but this time we actually seen the whale breach. As we stood there for around half an hour Emily and I must have seen around 8-9 whales jumping out of the water and falling back with a massive wave of white water it was incredible and something I have been waiting to see since doing the whale watching in Port Stevens.
In the evening went to the local cinema and watched pirates of the Caribbean, which was a real entertaining film but has to have the worst plot I have ever known of a film, although Jonny Depp is still funny as hell and made it worth watching.
We got up early the next day as Emily and I had booked our surfing lesson with blackdog surf school. There were 4 of us in the lesson, an American girl from NY and another English guy, we all got taken to the beach right next to our campsite. All of us got shown on the beach how to go from lying down on the board to standing up before we got taken out into the sea
to practice what we had learnt.
I have to say that it was incredible a lot better than I thought it would be, I absolutely loved it especially when the wave catches you and you ride the wave. I took me ages to finally get standing up on the board but after a while I did finally did it but kept falling of backwards!!! It’s amazing how tiring it is swimming back each time and you have to be aware of so many over surfers around as I nearly got hit once.
As you see from the pictures I did finally stand up not the best posture but I did do it!!! It is so addictive and I couldn’t believe the speed you can get on some of the waves. By the end of the lesson my arms were so knackered and worn out but I still didn’t want it to end I wanted to keep practicing and going faster. As you can see by the end I had it sorted, even standing on one foot!!!!!! Ha ha!!!
The following day we headed to the infamous alternative town of Nimbin which is another very hippy place inland situated in
Nimbin
Reminds me of back home amongst some lovely green mountains. The drive there was great and really reminded me of one of my old racing games on the playstation where you drive though the mountains on long windy roads with amazing scenery and views all around.
Nimbin is a very as is said to be like a bush Amsterdam but the town only consists of one small street (as you can see from the picture) with a few cafes and shops along with the Hemp Museum and Hemp Embassy raising consciousness about marijuana. It is definitely the most different place I have been to in Australia and was so strange walking up and down the high street with many more hippies and older people who look like they haven’t had a wash in months!!
We had a look in the hemp embassy and then the museum, even though I wouldn’t really class it as a museum as it just seem 4 or 5 rooms of colored artifacts with stuff written on all the walls, one of the rooms even had a VW camper van coming out of the wall.
Unfortunately the weather had turned when we were here so for the two days in
Pigs might fly
Great letter box rained most of the time, which meant both Emily and I Got very wet and very muddy as we had a campsite on some muddy ground out of town on the top of the hill. Lucky the tent held up well and didn’t leak at all which was a real surprise considering all the holes in the fly net side.
One of the afternoons it did clear up enough that we took a real nice walk out of Nimbin along this empty little track and found a beautiful area that reminded me a lot of Wales. It was a really gorgeous site and we sat around for a while as just listen to the wildlife everywhere. While we were there we seen a few of eagles flying around the place and what looked like one really pissed off white bird that kept coming back every 5 mins and making a right racket and then flying off again. We also had loads of small little lizards running around our legs while we sat in the grass which had me nervous as hell as I kept thinking there were snakes or spiders as we were sat at in long grass!! (this
country you have to really worry about things like that, as there are so many things that can kill you in seconds!!)
Byron Bay was lovely change from quite places we have been to since leaving Sydney, it has a great vibe about the place just a shame the night life wasn’t as good as I was expecting although the surfing more than made up for it, I just need to do some more practicing now. As for Nimbin…….. well it is was an experience!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.112s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 14; qc: 69; dbt: 0.0767s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb