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Published: November 21st 2012
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We arrived in Byron Bay, completely exhausted and weren't able to check straight into our rooms, so instead of collapsing into bed we dragged ourselves off to explore. Before we did this, we checked our belongings in and gave over our passports..... except that Gwend quickly realised she did not have her passport. This was one of our worst travelling fears come true; Gwenda unpacked and repacked her bag a million times before the horror truly sank in- thankfully, when she rang the hostel that we had just left in Sydney, the staff had picked it up. We were so relieved but would not completely relax until she had in back in her hands.
The Jolly Swagman hostel agreed to send it on to Brisbane, where we would arrive in about ten days, to give it time to get there (we all breathed a sigh of relief when we arrived in Brisbane and Gwenda and passport were reunited).
We were staying in Cape Byron Lodge in Byron Bay, which was ok, but a bit out of town and, in addition, the girl at the desk told us that some boys had seen a python at
the hostel the night before we checked in-scary. After going to get some breakfast, we finally checked into our room and quickly realised that we were sharing with some miserable Germans who slept all the time and got moody if we woke them... excellent.
After re-waking and feeling a bit more refreshed, we went down to the beach taking with us the free body boards from our hostel. Gwenda and I were looking forward to this because Luce had told us once, twice or ten times that she can body board so we wanted to see if she could live up to her words. Unfortunately, for the first time, since being in Australia, the sea was pretty flat so we didn't manage to ‘catch many waves’.
The next day we woke up to a massive thunder storm and so had to cancel the sea kayak that we had booked. However, once this had cleared up we went on a walk which took us to the most easterly point of Australia. We were all so exhausted, partly from sleeping on a bus the night before and partly because it was unbelievably humid. It was worth the walk though because when we reached the most easterly point and looked down to the sea we saw a family of dolphins, turtles and stingrays swimming below us.
We were so tired when we got back but had decided to go out so we 'forced' ourselves to drink the goon. Unfortunately we had a bit of a tag along for our night out. We had left Luce alone for five minutes and she made a 'friend' who was THE biggest scrounger I have ever met. As soon as we got into the bar she went up to a poor, unsuspecting guy who was holding drinks and said 'why've you got two drinks' (in a thick Bolton accent) to which the reply was 'buy one get one free', our friend then thought it appropriate to say, 'can I have the other one then'. She had been travelling around for about 18months on some ridiculously small sum of about £2000.... we soon worked out how. Thankfully she didn't last the night (although we bumped into her in pretty much every stop up the east coast) and we ended up having a good night at the well renowned ‘Cheeky Monkeys’ backpacker bar.
The next day, however, was not such a good time as we had to get up for our rescheduled sea kayak. The Germans were also unhappy with this early morning situation and we did not leave as pals.
We weren't feeling too bad considering our 4.30am arrival back at the hostel and our 8.00am wake up. When we got to the Kayaking place we realised that it was two people to a kayak so the girls abandoned me and I paired up with a Dutch guy. We were the Welsh and the Dutch, so together we were team Wutch!
We started off pretty strong and it was really good as we got to see some sea turtles when we paddled by. When we got further out we also got to see some dolphins who came within a few metres of our kayaks which was pretty amazing. However the waves were seriously choppy so after a while, the effects of the night before hit us and we were three pretty green sailors; Luce was actually sick over the side of her kayak and I think my Wutchie began feeling a bit sour towards me when I gave up paddling.
On the way back we had the chance to get out and have a snorkel but only one person could go from the kayak at one time. This meant that when a dolphin swam over the other member of team Wutch was in the water so that was a bit disappointing. Gwenda was in there with it though so that was really lucky for her.
We were feeling pretty despondent when it came to leaving Byron Bay. Two nights there was not enough time by any stretch of the imagination. The place is a haven for backpackers so there's plenty of opportunity to meet people. As a result of the amount of young people flocking there, we met more than one person who had professed to having a 'good night' at 'Cheeky Monkeys', which is overrun with like minded backpackers.
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