A Day in Byron Bay

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After leaving Hervey Bay I didn't really have much time to get on with these blog entries for the rest of my trip, so this is the first entry that I am catching up with after getting back the UK. Oh well.

So after sorting out the next day's surfing I found myself with a day at liberty to amble around Byron Bay, just pottering around and seeing the sights. This was a fairly laid back day. Byron Bay is mainly a beach and party town (though not quite so much as Airlie Beach, at least party-wise. I found it slightly ironic that Airlie Beach doesn't really have much of a beach, whilst Byron Bay has quite a large one). First off I took a long walk through a bit of a 'rainforest' (more just a patch of woodland, but it was billed as rainforest) to the Lighthouse. People asked whether that was any good- well, it was a lighthouse and looked pretty much as a you would expect a lighthouse to look like. There were some very good views of the beaches looking down from the cliffs along the way and it is situated on a headland surrounded on three sides by the ocean. From there I walked back towards Byron Bay proper on the other side of the headland. This meant I could take in Little Wategos Beach (rocky) and Wategos Beach (sandy), and get the mild thrill of standing on Australia's Easternmost Point (come to think of it, when I was going up the West Australia coast, I can't have been too far from Australia's Westernmost point either).

From there I just stayed on the beach and took a long walk along the sand, pretty much across the whole frontage of Byron Bay (which isn't a very big place) before settling down for a bit of a sunbathe with a book, having possibly exhausted the 'things to do in Byron Bay' list, beyond bars and surfing.

In the evening I had a lovely but pricey steak before going off to explore the nightlife. I decided I should at least pop into the nightclub 'Cheeky Monkeys' since everyone I had met had had an opinion on the place- it seems a bit of a local institution. Opinions varied from 'it's a great laugh' to 'it's good but make sure you're already drunk when you get there' to 'I HATE Cheeky Monkeys'. I figured I'd go along and form my own opinion.

Oh dear.

Haha maybe that's a bit harsh. Very drunken, verrrry crowded, very trendy backpackerish and my feet stuck to the floor. People danced on the tables, I guess because there was no space on the actual floor. Wouldn't accept the voucher I'd been given by a dorm mate for a free glass of 'champagne' (I presume the inverted commas on the assumption that a grubby nightclub is unlikely to be handing out Moet Chandon). It had a less potentially threatening 'you lookin' at my girlfriend?' atmosphere than similar places in the UK; it had a happy party vibe to it, and would I guess have been better if I had someone to go with. As it was, I made a fairly rapid departure.

And so that was Byron Bay, next up... Surf Camp!

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Photos

Lighthouse
Does exactly what it says on the tin

Beach at Byron Bay
The view from the cliffs

Easternmost Point of Australia
Being the place, in Australia, which is the most Eastern

Little Watego Beach
With all the rocks, and none of the sand