Byron Bay May 15th- May 17th

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June 1st 2009

Published: June 1st 2009

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Rob S

Byron Bay

The hostel at Byron Bay

Friday May 15th- The bus left the main stop at Chancellor’s Place at 9:30am. We hit a little bit of traffic as we got closer to Byron Bay so the ride took a little over 2 hours. We watched an Australian TV show on the ride called “We Can Be Heroes” which was really funny. It’s about becoming the Australian of the Year and the same actor plays each of the different main characters. It’s rather politically incorrect which I personally really enjoyed. On the bus ride we also signed up for the group we’d be in for the scheduled activities. Group 1 would do sea kayaking Saturday morning and surf lessons Saturday afternoon which would leave Sunday as a free day. Group 2 would do sea kayaking on Saturday afternoon and surf lessons Sunday morning. I signed up in group 1 with all of my friends so we would have the free day on Sunday. When we got to Byron the first thing we did was check into our hostel and split up into rooms. I was in a room with Brian, Mikey, Javier, and Seth. After everything was settled in the hostel, we went to Subway for a free

Byron Bay

Picture of Byron area

lunch on Dickinson. By the time we had all eaten it was about 1pm, and we had free time until a scheduled walk to the lighthouse at Byron Bay at 3pm. I walked around Byron for a little bit with Dave, Matt, Seth and Brett. We didn’t do a whole lot, basically just explored a little (Dave, Matt and Brett had already been to Byron) and then went back to the hostel to relax for an hour or so before the walk. The group left the hostel around 3pm for what would be about a 2 hour walk along the beach and up to the Byron Bay Lighthouse. It was actually fairly hot out, and I made the rookie mistake of not bringing my water bottle. The walk along the beach was nice, but as we started to make our way up the hill to the lighthouse, it got a little rough. Who would have known that if you climb up for a long time, you end up going down for awhile, and then up some of the steepest stairs I have ever seen. Thankfully I’ve been going to the gym or else I may not have made it. Once

Byron Bay

The beach we walked along on the trek to the lighthouse

we got to the top we took some time, snapped a few pictures, and made our way back down the mountain, up the mountain, and back down the mountain. Once we got back to the hostel we had time for a quick shower and then we took a trip to the liquor store. A group of us decided to have a few beers before dinner. After about an hour we left to go to the Beach Hotel for a dinner on Dickinson. I had the Tasmanian Salmon which was really really good. It was a darker pink/orange than the salmon in the US but it was tasty. After dinner we all went to the Cheeky Monkey, which is one of the main bars in Byron. We ended up there for the rest of the night, and things got pretty rowdy. I finally got to bed around 130am or 2am, and unfortunately I had to be up and ready to go by 9am for sea kayaking.

Saturday May 16th- The alarm went off at 830am and I staggered out of bed to breakfast. My head was pounding, and I certainly wasn’t alone. The walk to the sea kayaking place was

Byron Bay

Beach at Byron

slow and methodical. It felt like about 4 hours had passed by the time we made it to the place with the boats. Our group had 20 Dickinson kids and a few others to make about 25-30 total people. I paired up with Mikey and we were fitted for our gear. We received helmets and life jackets. The helmets didn’t make sense at first, but by the end of the kayak it was pretty clear what they were for. After a brief lesson about how to paddle and where to sit on the boat, it was my and Mikey’s turn to push off through the waves and head out. One of the guides steadied the boat and we jumped in, and then they helped push us through the first set of waves while we frantically paddled to get clear of the white caps. We made it through and kept paddling to try and reach the group. The person in the back had the acting role of captain. The main job of the person in the back was to help paddle but also to steer the kayak. Unfortunately for me, Mikey was a terrible captain. Instead of heading in a straight

Byron Bay

Beach at Byron

line to reach everyone else, we kept veering off and away from everyone. We had to zigzag the entire way to the group on several occasions because of Mikey’s inability to steer. Once we were safely out and away from the waves, the guides showed us how to stand on the kayak and try to balance. At this point a lot of people took spills into the water, and half way through Mikey’s first attempt he went flying. I didn’t attempt to stand up because by the time Mikey got back in the boat, people were figuring out that we could flip one another. This would dominate the rest of the day. When Mikey got back in the boat Seth (who was partnered with our advisor Ann) made their way over to our boat. We knew we were in trouble, and Seth stood up on his boat and went to take a diving leap onto ours to flip it. Just as Seth stood up, I pushed off on his boat and he took a spill right in between the 2 kayaks. He wasn’t ready for it at all so it was hilarious. Once he was in the water he pushed

Byron Bay

Beach at Byron with a view of the rock island just off the coast (we paddled by it on the sea kayak)

and pulled on our kayak until it flipped over. I will say this, taking a little swim in the ocean was a really quick hangover fix. Also, the helmet is important because when you flip over there’s a good chance your head at some point will smack off the kayak. When Mikey and I flipped and got the boat turned back over Seth hopped into my kayak so Mikey had to swim a pretty good distance to get to Ann. This was the best thing that could have happened because Seth was a much better captain than Mikey. We made our way out and around a point and then onto the beach where we had morning tea. The entire trip to the beach was filled with sea battles between everyone trying to flip one another. The ride onto the beach was wild. I had to sit back further towards the middle of the kayak in what I called the jump seat, and picked my paddle up out of the water. Seth had to keep paddling until we caught a wave and let us carry it in. It was a much faster version of a boogie board ride. Thankfully we didn’t

Byron Bay

Beach at Byron

smash down in a wave, and we beached ourselves. After morning tea and a break, we boarded the vessel, jumped back off and headed back. The kayak back was filled with more sea battles, and by the end of the trip we were exhausted. Kayaking is really physically demanding and challenging but it was a lot of fun. We were supposed to see dolphins, whales, fish, something, but because of all the noise we were making we didn’t see 1 living organism whatsoever. Once we brought the kayaks back up to the beach, we had about 35 minutes to grab lunch until we were due at the place where we would receive our surfing lessons. For lunch we stopped at this small gourmet burger place which was delicious. For about $6 the burger was huge and came with a bunch of different toppings. After lunch we walked back through Byron and until we reached the surfer’s place. When we got to the place where the surfing lesson jumped off, we were fitted for rash guards and were loaded up into a van to take us to the beach. The rash guard reminded me a lot of the wetsuit. It was

Byron Bay

Starting to walk up the first hill towards the lighthouse

just as tight and not very comfortable until it got wet. The van took us down about 7 at a time so it took a few trips to get to the beach. Once we were dropped off we were given a board and walked down the beach until we reached a place which was designated for the surf lessons. The first 15-20 minutes consisted of us laying our boards on the beach and going through the motion we’d use to stand up on the board during the waves. We went over safety procedures and headed into the water. We didn’t waste any time getting ready. The actual steps to surfing aren’t very complicated. It’s a 3 step process where you line up your feet with the end of the board, put your arms just under your shoulders like the position for a push up only tighter, and push off and leap up sideways on the board. We each took turns as the instructor held the board still while we jumped on and then sent us off with the waves. I had some beginner’s luck at first and got right up and rode the wave out on my first try. The

Byron Bay

Beach/water at Byron

water wasn’t very deep so it wasn’t ideal conditions for beginners (according to the instructor) but it wasn’t too bad. After my first bout of luck I wasn’t as successful, although I did get partially up a few times after. I will say one thing; every single one of us had epic spills into the water. There wasn’t one person that didn’t wipe out really badly at least once, so it made for a really good time. The board itself had a foam top and was much larger than regular surf boards which made it easier to handle and safer to fall on. After a little over an hour in the water, we all made our way out and took turns taking the van back to the surf place. It was a really fun day but pretty tiring. Once we left we walked back to the hostel, took a shower, and walked back to the surf place to pick up our pictures we had purchased. From the surf place we walked to the liquor store and picked up some beer to drink before dinner. Dinner was a barbeque at the hostel (it was less than good) and then we all

Byron Bay

Sun and water at Byron

made our way back to the Cheeky Monkey for the second night in a row. We also decided what we would do with our free Sunday. Instead of lying on the beach all the day, a group of 10 of us (me, Mikey, Seth, Dave, Matt, Brett, Blake, Caity, Chelsea, and Amanda) would rent cars and take a trip to Nimbin to check it out. We had heard a lot about Nimbin being the “center of the counter culture in Australia,” and how it was notorious for being a huge hippy town, so we decided we’d do something different for the day and check it out. The night at the Cheeky Money was wild, but not quite as wild as Friday. I also went to the Beach Hotel with Dave, Matt, Caity, Chelsea and Amanda to have a few drinks before going to bed. I was in bed at a decent time so I would be rested for the next day. I did have a delicious meat pie from a bakery coming home from the bar for only $4, which really hit the spot after the lack of dinner we had eaten at the hostel.

Sunday May 17th- We

Byron Bay

Byron Bay lighthouse. It was brutal getting to

had to be all packed up and out of our rooms by 10am. The hostel provided a room for us to store all of our baggage until the bus came to pick us up around 3pm. Once we stored all of our bags, the group of 10 who decided to go to Nimbin headed over to the car rental place to finalize the rentals and pick up our cars. The process took a little over 30 minutes and we were on the road by about 1045am. I was Dave’s copilot in a car that had Dave, me, Mikey, Chelsea and Amanda. Caity was driving the other car with the rest of the group. The drive was really scenic and very nice. It was nice to have the sense of freedom again that comes with having a car. After the first 10 minutes or so Dave had the hang of driving on the other side of the road, although he did keep flipping the windshield wipers instead of the blinkers for awhile. The drive to Nimbin took us about an hour and 15 minutes. Once we got to Nimbin we wouldn’t have much time to explore. The thing is though is

Byron Bay

Beach at Byron

that Nimbin is tiny. It’s basically 1 street with shops and stores and then the market was going on in a park. Nimbin was everything people had made it out to be. It didn’t even seem like a real place. It’s the closest I’ll ever come to seeing what the 70s were like that’s for sure. The market was crowded with, well, hippies, and all of their jewelry and clothing was hand made. I didn’t see anything I liked well enough to buy, but it was neat to see the time some of these people put into creating the clothes and accessories. Nimbin was set in the mountains so the scenery around the town was really nice. We ate lunch at a small café (I had a peanut sauce chicken wrap which was delicious) and explored the various shops in the town. To put it politely, I couldn’t stop laughing. I’ll put it this way: Nimbin was certainly the most “counter culture” oriented place I have ever seen or experienced in my life. Once we were finished exploring it was time to go, and we made the trek back to Byron Bay. Nimbin was certainly different, and I was glad

Byron Bay

Sign on the walk to the lighthouse

I went to check it out instead of spending a day on the beach. After surfing on and by the beach all day, I’m glad I was able to experience something unique to Australia. We arrived back in Byron around 3pm, just in time to catch the bus back. We grabbed our stuff, boarded the bus, and headed back to UQ. We got back around 530pm and settled back into our rooms. Byron Bay was not nearly as action packed as some of my previous trips, but it was a great time and I’m glad it went like it did. It was certainly quite the party weekend. Never in my life would I have thought I would have went surfing in Australia, but then again I’ve seen and done a lot of things on this trip a year ago I wouldn’t have imaged myself doing.

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