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Published: November 11th 2010
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30th October -
Hostel: Aquarius Backpackers
Price: $60 per night - double room, connected to a dorm of 8 people
Room: Double bed between four walls - even less than Coffs Harbour - no mirror!
Free Dinners from the hostel: Not too bad - they ran out of beef lasagne so I had the veggie lasagne and Liam had fish and chips for the third time this week lol!
But they were alright, just not enough for us, as we eat the same amount as a family of 4 lol! It only cost us $2.60 each, so you cannot complain - we’re having another one tonight!
Good Points - the people in the dorm were really friendly, got to socialise with other people than ourselves! Lockable door, fan, bathroom next door, free dinner, good kitchen (but no oven), good bar/pool area!
Bad Points - No oven!
8/10
We got up at 5am again!! This time with a bit more sleep but not enough for our liking lol! We were at the coach station at 6am and headed off around 6.30am to Byron Bay, arriving at 11am so not as long as the previous journey.
Liam took travel sickness tablets this time and it seemed to work! The journey wasn’t too bad, although it was hot on the coach, for some stupid reason the heating was on! Even once we asked them to turn it off, the sun was shining on us which made us hot! We also stopped for a Macca’s (Ozzie word for Mcdonalds) brekkie on the way which was yummy! We’ve had way too many takeaways since we’ve been travelling lol!
Once we got to Byron we walked to the hostel, it was only a 10min walk down the main road to not far. We walked in and it looked really nice, better than an average hostel - Liam said it’s also a hotel so maybe that’s why.
We checked in and finally found our room after realising we had booked a double room where you have to walk through an 8 bed dorm to access it. After the confusion we dropped our bags in the room and spoke to one of the guys who is staying in the dorm. He’s from the UK, it’s really weird since we’ve been travelling we’ve heard so many British accents, we’re not used
to them anymore so they sound strange, we can’t remember what they sound like lol.
We then got ready to hit the beach, it’s a 5min walk from the hostel, so easy to get to! We stayed on the beach for all of half an hour lol. We’re not very good at sunbathing - it’s so boring and we saw lots of washed up blue-bottle jellyfish so we were paranoid they were going sting us if we went in the sea!
We went for lunch at the café next to the hostel, I think its part of the hostel, I had a lovely burger and Liam had chicken and chips! After lunch we went for a walk round Cape Byron along the cliff tops towards the lighthouse and most easterly point of Australia. It was a good walk but tiring - all we seem to do it walk all the time! We had a dip in the sea as well, oh and walked to a lookout point and spotted some dolphins!
We then walked back to the town and had a little look around before coming back to the hostel. We get a free dinner if we
buy a drink from the bar - we’ve heard they’tre okay so we’re going to give it a go! We’re going to go out tonight for a few drinks, probably with the dorm people to celebrate Halloween!
31st October -
Last night turned out to be fun, we got some cider (cheapos!) and played ring of fire on the balcony with the dorm lot. Everyone got very drunk and merry - we all decided to out to one of the local clubs but didn’t get there til half 12 and when we did there was a massive que! After 15mins of waiting me and Liam decided to bail and get a kebab then head back to the hostel. Talking to the others today they said it was packed and they didn’t stay long - so we didn’t miss out on much by the sounds of it!
We woke up a bit later today 9am woo (still not a real lie-in though lol). We had brekkie then headed to the beach. The weather we really humid and pretty cloudy so we walked along the beach and sat down for a while but didn’t bother sunbathing. Then we went
to the supermarket to buy lunch and breakfast for tmz to save a bit of money. Although it is harder to budget when you’re travelling, especially when we’re only in one place for a couple of days then go to the next. Compared to when we were in Geelong and could buy a week’s worth of shopping! Ah well, we have saved up for this!
We brought a pizza to cook for lunch and got back to the hostel to realise that they don’t have ovens! The basic essential of any kitchen and it didn’t have any! So we opted for the microwave instead, it didn’t taste great but it filled a gap.
Byron is a very hippy town, it’s really relaxing and a chilled out place with not much to do expect go to the beach - we both really enjoyed it!
After lunch we went on our sea-kayaking tour, which we had booked previously (Cape Byron Sea Kayaking - $65pp). We headed out at 1pm and the tour lasted till 4pm. So quite a long time!! The waves were very choppy and the wind was pretty strong so it was hard work trying to paddle
out against the force of them!
We kayaked out to sea for about 2km, so it was quite a way out…with no stops either! Our arms were in agony! We then stopped for a while to watch the whales pass-by!!!! They were Humpbacks and were HUGE!
Liam started to feel a bit sea sick when we weren’t paddling, so he didn’t feel too great. Then we kayaked to a beach nearby but we capsized and I got stuck underneath the kayak and couldn’t push it off me. It was really scary and felt like I was under the water for a lifetime. But we made it to the shore and had a quick tea break and a look for the viewing point, where the instructor said there were sharks nearby - a way to make us feel better…NOT!
Anyway after that we headed back to the mainland. On the way we caught a really good wave and were able to surf it for ages. But with the next wave we weren’t so lucky and once again fell into the water! This time we lost our kayak and had to swim in the middle of the sea…after the instructor
told us about the Mako Sharks!
After our ordeal we kayaked back to the group and the instructor spotted some more Humpbacks. We floated for a little while and then saw them; they were less than 10m away! One of them went right under one of the other couples’ kayaks - scary stuff!! It was great to see and made the pain and horror of the tour worthwhile.
We finally made it back to the beach and both said to each other ‘we’re not doing that again’ lol! It was amazing to see the Humpbacks but was so tiring!
Now we have to pack all our things again, re-packing all the time is not fun but it had to be done! Up early again tomorrow, as we are getting the coach to Surfers Paradise - we are praying for hot weather.
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