East Coast Stop Three - Byron Bay

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We were quite looking forward to our stay in Byron Bay as we had been told that it’s a really great, laid-back place with great beaches and friendly people. Our journey took just under 3 hours, and we arrived at the Byron Beach Resort at around 12pm, which turned out to be a little early for check-in (we did expect this, but thought it was worth a try just in case!), so we drove into the town for a look around for a couple of hours. Byron has a really strong surfer-vibe, and as we had been told, the people there were indeed very laid back and very friendly! We ate lunch at a place called Hogs Breath Café, which was kind of like an American-style diner. We also bought a couple of beach towels – something that we stilldidn’t have, despite living by the beach for the last few months!

We went back to the hostel/hotel/resort (kind of a mix of all three to be honest!) just after 2pm, and made our way to our room for the next 6 nights. It was much smaller than the massive apartment that we had in Coffs Harbour, but we were pretty happy to find a balcony with a hammock that overlooked the beach opposite, just across the road. We had a little explore of the resort, and had a look around the kitchen to find out what we had to work with for the next few days in terms of cooking. A few microwaves and some hobs meant that we could at least survive on pasta and a few microwave meals, so it would do for us! We had a walk over to the beach, which looked gorgeous, and we were sure that we would be making a few visits here over the next few days!

The following morning was the day that we had booked our sea kayaking trip, where we might get the chance to see some whales and dolphins. We were up bright and early, and were picked up from our hotel by a guy called Dougie in a 4x4. He was a really nice guy – definitely one of those older surfer/hippy-type people that just loved nature and gave everyone he saw the peace sign! We picked up a few other people - having to go back to our place once because Dougie forgot that there were two other people that he had to pick up, then backtracking again later after he drove past a hotel from which someone else was waiting to be picked up! Thankfully, eventually everyone was on board and we made our way along the shore until we saw the ‘Go Sea Kayak’ sign and plenty of kayaks lying around waiting for us!

There were quite a few other people already there that would be in our group – there were probably around 25 of us or so altogether, which they said was one of the biggest groups that they had had for a while! We all got geared up in our wetsuits, lifejackets and helmets, then were told to grab a kayak in our pairs and make our way down to the beach. Once there, we were given the rundown of the basics of kayaking, what to do if we fell out and a few other general health and safety issues. We were all raring to go, so once they had taken some pictures of our group, we were off! One-by-one we each had to paddle out past the breaking waves to the ocean, where we then had to wait for everyone else. Thankfully the waves weren’t too big this morning, so we made it out fairly easily, noting before we jumped into the kayak how lovely and warm the water was!

Once everyone was out, we all made our way out to sea and were then on the lookout for whales, dolphins or turtles. We paddled for a while and occasionally would stop for a break, where some people attempted to stand on their kayaks to get a better view for whale-spotting, usually resulting in said person falling off into the water – including Craig! We eventually spotted a few sprays that indicated humpback whales were a few hundred meters away, so we all began paddling in that direction. Although we didn’t get quite as close as the boat did in Port Stephens, we were able to watch a few different whales swim by, and got to watch a humpback whale breach - for those that don’t know what this is, it’s when a whale throws their whole body out of the water – absolutely incredible thing to see! I didn’t get any pictures of the whales, but I took a few pictures of us with my camera that was in its waterproof case (it’s a little big for it, hence the ‘tunnel’ look in most of the pictures), however one of the guides did have a camera and he took some photos of us which they later shared on their website for us to download later on.

After paddling around and watching the whales for a while, the guides made us look back and see how far out we had actually come – the beach looked like it was MILES away, and we had to paddle back in against the wind! We made our way back to the shore, which was pretty exhausting and our shoulders were killing us but as we overheard a girl saying later on “you can either stop, sit there and cry and be stuck out there forever or just paddle on through the pain” – ha ha! After what seemed like hours of battling the wind and the tide, we made it back close to the shore, where we were then able to surf our way back in one-by-one. We were one of the last to go but we managed to catch a huge wave, which we surfed all the way back in, with Craig battling to keep it straight with his paddle at the back. We kind of went sideways but were still surfing in, and the guides later said that ours was probably the best attempt and the biggest wave! Craig eventually was thrown off but Emma hung on right until she hit the sand, when she was thrown off and the kayak was thrown on top of her! A little bruised and with a bit of sand-burn (if that’s possible!), we dragged our kayak next to everyone else’s, watched the last few people try to surf in, then were rewarded with some Tim-Tams! For people in the UK, these are kind of like Penguin bars – yummy!

Once we were all filled up with biscuits, we dragged our kayaks back up to the grassy area just off the beach ready for the next group. Once out of our wetsuits, we jumped into the 4x4 for a lift back to our hotel with Dougie, where we relaxed for the rest of the afternoon/evening after a pretty tiring morning!

The following few days at Byron Bay went by in a bit of a lovely lazy blur, so I won’t go into what we did every day as it will probably be rather boring to read! Most days we went down to the beach to lie in the sun (by the way, every day has been beautiful, sunny and warm since we left Sydney – how lucky are we?!), and for a swim in the warm ocean. We also enjoyed a few afternoon snoozes on the hammock on our balcony, and Emma was particularly surprised on one of the days to look over from reading my book inside to find a large ginger cat had invited itself onto our balcony, and was sitting on the chair next to a sleeping Craig in the hammock! She woke Craig up, who was also pretty shocked to see him sitting there staring at him! He was very friendly and fussy, and soon joined Craig on the hammock, where he stayed for a while and fell asleep! It turned out that there were a few cats that lived on the property (3 that we saw but there may have been more), that we would see roaming around and lying around in the sun most days – and the cheeky ginger one would often be found in the kitchen at around 6pm ready to eat any scraps that people would offer him!

The hotel also offered free bike hire for 2 hours each day, so we took a couple of bikes on one of the morning for a ride into Byron Bay, where we found a cycle trail that went along the shore. We really enjoyed our ride out, and we found a little reserve just down the road from the hotel that was a little safe haven for birds that wanted to rest and build a nest for their eggs. Most days we would go into town to have a walk around and to just soak up the atmosphere – we really did fall in love with the place and can see the draw for many people to visit here.

On our final day we took a drive up to the Cape Byron light house, which is located right at the top end of the bay, with stunning views from the cliffs of the surrounding area and stunning coastline. Because of its location on rocks jutting out over the ocean, we were able to spot some more whales as they migrated past the area – absolutely stunning. Overall – other than the kayaking we had a lovely relaxed few days in Byron Bay, which was needed really as our next stop was Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast – theme park capital of Australia!

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Comments

[wollonbar]

Byron Bay holidays
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