Byron Bay

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We headed off to Byron Bay for the next part of the adventure. We had read about a place on the internet called the Arts Factory which sounded really great, mainly becasue it had a Monday night talent show where you could get up and perform. Well on the way there I had my whole routine planned out and even Shenton was getting into the spirit of it, he was going to do his stand up comedy routine which I was really looking forward to as his jokes are so good!

Well anyway we found it eventually and thankfully Shenton asked to look at the "walk on" camping site before we got the tent out of the car. The woman said just go down that path as far as you can go then you will see the camping site. We wandered off past lots of middle class, dreaded up kids who's parents were obviously paying for them to live the dream, well when we reached the camping site I wanted to run back, it looked like a refugee camp. There were loads of tents all squished in together "living the dream" That was enough for me, not even the promise of a talent show could keep me there. So instead we went to the camp site down the road a bit and paid the same price to have a lovely pitch with noone camped around our space.

We managed to track down and old friend of Shenton's who lived in Byron just by doing a search on the interent and so Alick said we could stay with him at his place. After a night in Byron listening to live music at the Buddha bar and the railway bar Alick met us and took us back to his place. It is only a few km from Byron centre but a whole world away in terms of the beautiful location. His house is great and we are really grateful that he is letting us stay with him. It has a lovely veranda and is surrounded by woodland, perfect.

Alick is a yoga teacher so on Saturday and Sunday morning he takes us to do one of his classes, he is a really good teacher and his nickname of Captain Chadaranga is well deserved. In the end I just lay on the floor and took a rest each time as they are killers.

The beaches at Byron are great, surfing was ok and we did manage to do some but there are loads of people there so even if I did manage to catch a wave I was fearing a big crash and didn't really enjoy it. Shenton is getting better and has managed to surf some big waves all the way in, I am still on the white stuff but thats ok.

Alick has a cat called Fluffy who lookes a lot like scooby so that was cool. He also has the same killer instincts as one night when Shenton was the only one left up, he heard a noise outside. He said it sounded like an ewok from star wars. He shone the torch and saw a tiny little baby possum who had come to say hello. Fluffy then came round the corner seeing the light and thinking it was food time for him. Before Shenton had chance to grab the possum, Fluffy had him in his mouth. As Shenton approached he did drop him to show him his present and so Shenton managed to get the possum (which was playing dead) up a tree and to saftey. He then spent the next half an hour trying to keep the cat away and thought he had succedded but in the morning we found the little possum dead on the road.

On the Sunday Alick took us to see a waterfall and then to the Cyrstal Castle, which is really a beautiful and tranquil place and it feels like you are in Asia not Australila. I am totally relaxed and chilled out now and we had a really great time at Byron thanks to Alick and Manique who were great hosts, even if they did turn into animals at night. At least i had pirate Shenton to protect me :-0

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Photos

Al's place
Shenton and Manique on the veranda