Byron Bay

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21/12/2009 - Our last Greyhound bus ride was early afternoon after a fantastic and expensive time in Surfer’s Paradise we were moving onto Byron Bay. Neither Hannah or myself had ever been to Byron so this was something we were really looking forward to. It was a short bus ride to Byron and we were dropped off at a small bus shelter in the middle of town. Our hostel had a shuttle which was waiting for us so we jumped in and were taken to Cape Byron YHA, our last hostel of the trip. We checked in and went up to our room, it wasn’t great. Most of the hostels we had stayed at were outstanding, this one was anything but. Room was small and lifeless with no air-conditioning only a useless creaky fan. We dumped our stuff and headed out to explore the streets of Byron Bay. The town was awesome and the atmosphere here was incredible. Byron was a small surf town in northern New South Wales and everyone loved it here. We checked out the beautiful beach which was packed, people everywhere and loads of them taking advantage of the awesome surf this beach had.

We continued to explore the town a little more and decided to find a supermarket to get some food for dinner. We were really worried about money and it was getting us down as we tried shopping for the cheapest possible dinner, we were leaning towards 2 minute noodles. Afterwards we went back to the hotel to have a rest, we were hot, stressed and really depressed about our lack of money. Later that afternoon we headed down to the beach, where I started to take loads of photos of this beautiful place. We decided that we had such a big credit card debt already another few days really wouldn’t make much of a difference so we headed back to the supermarket and got something decent to eat, and some drinks as well. We had a few drinks and played some cards then cooked dinner at the hostel. We had a big day of walking tomorrow so decided to have an early night.

22/12/2009 - It was a stunning day today, very hot outside. This morning we were going to walk all the way up to Cape Byron Lighthouse and back. We set off as early as we could to avoid the worst of the heat as we walked down the road toward the lighthouse trail head. As we walked we spotted an interesting lookout point so we made a quick detour to have a look. From here we were at the bottom of the Cape just by the beach but had a fantastic view across Byron Bay, I took some photos then we continued on. As we made our way up to the lighthouse we stopped for some more amazing photo opportunites, it was also good to have a rest, it was so hot already and we were exhausted from walking uphill in this heat. Eventually after around an hour of walking we finally reached the white lighthouse at the top. I spent most of the time up here taking photos but there was also a small meuseum inside the lighthouse that we had a look at.

The view from up here was incredible, we could see down either side of the cliff at two different beaches, all packed with people. Once Hannah and I had rested in the shade for a while we began to make our way back down going a different way this time. Walking back was much easier and also quicker as well, we walked all the way back through the bush to our hostel. The whole trip took over 2 hours, we were tired and ready for a swim. The rest of the afternoon was spent at the beach, I spent hours in the water, it was so refreshing. On the way back we stopped to use some internet and considered booking ourselves on a trip to nearby Nimbin tomorrow. However we just couldn’t afford it, even though it was quite cheap we needed to stop spending so much money. Having said that later that evening we decided to try a nearby pizza restaurant for dinner, we couldn’t ignore our stomach’s. After dinner we headed into town to a massive pub for a few drinks and some cards. We were desperate to pay for things on card but they wouldn’t let us here so we had to take cash out. I almost had nothing in my bank account. After drinks we headed back to our hostel to bed after an exhausting day.

23/12/2009 - It was our last full day of travelling the East Coast of Australia today so we decided to do nothing but lie on the beach. We spend all day on the beach, most of my day was in the water. We did a little Christmas shopping for ourselves and my family and when we returned to the hostel we jumped into the pool. Most of the time the hostel pool was closed to guests because it was also used as a training pool for the scuba classes by the shop next door. So to come back in the middle of the afternoon and find it empty was great. We cooked dinner at the hostel and celebrated our amazing journey in Oz with beer and pasta. Tonight we packed our bags to bursting point and went to sleep ready for our flight home to Melbourne for Christmas with my folks.

Accommodation:
Cape Byron YHA

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Photos

Byron Bay
Beautiful Cape Byron Lighthouse overlooks the beaches of Byron Bay.

Byron Bay
Stunning Byron Bay beach, you can see the lighthouse way off in the distance.

Byron Bay
Dusk over Byron Bay beach.

Byron Bay
A lovely little secluded beach on Cape Byron.

Byron Bay
Looking back at Byron Bay from a fantastic lookout point.

Byron Bay
The Cape Byron Lighthouse up close.

Byron Bay
The most easterly point in Australia in Byron Bay