Byron Bay

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3/3

We were up early to check out of our hotel to get our Greyhound bus at 9am to Byron Bay (via Brisbane!) We were woken up very early by someone setting the smoke alarm off at the hotel by burning some toast! We got a taxi to the bus stop, where there were already quite a few people waiting. We got ready to get on the bus as it pulled in, as on the last bus we ended up on the very back seat, which was extremely hot, and next to the toilet! We got on and got good seats this time and headed off. We stopped at the same services as on the way, and got ourselves a drink. We arrived at Brisbane at 2pm, where we had a 2 hour wait until our next bus. We got a McDonalds for lunch and won a couple of free bits on the monopoly! We headed off at 4pm for our bus to Byron Bay, and arrived at 9pm, though we had jumped forward an hour as we crossed into New South Wales. We stopped at a garage and bought a drink and some TimTams that were on offer. We weren't really sure which direction we needed to head in, but walked, somehow in the right direction and found a taxi rank to get to our hostel. It started to chuck it down as we got out of the taxi, and the check in office was closed, and we were meant to check in at a little window. Thankfully the guy let us inside so we didn't get too wet, and let us through the inside of the building up to our room, where we had a private room, with en suite, so it didn't feel too much like a hostel for us. We didn't have any A/C, so had to put the fan on full and hope we didn't overheat too much. We crashed out after an early start and long bus journey.

4/3

We woke up to rain showers, but got ready to head out into the town. We walked the road way into town (as opposed to the beach- tide too high!). It took us around half an hour to get into town and we bought a drink and snack from a bakery. We walked around the town- there were lots of surf shops and travel agents and some bars- that was basically all there was! We booked a sea kayak tour for the next day, where we might see dolphins and turtles. We walked to Main beach and watched some surfers. The waves weren't amazing, but a few caught some good waves, and it was fun to watch them. We walked along the beach, as far as we could go. We had to wade through a bit of the sea to get the a lookout point- we had to roll our shorts up so we didn't get wet, as we didn't have our bikinis on. The lookout was at the most Easterly point of Australia- it was very rocky and there were so e good waves here. There were a lot of surfers out here catching the good waves. We watched the surfers and waves for a while, then crossed back over the sea and walked back along the beach into the town, getting pretty hot walking along the beach. We walked around the town a bit more, but there wasn't much to see. We wanted to have dinner, and it was about 4pm so we were pretty hungry, but there wasn't anywhere open at this time- they didn't open until 5 or 6 for dinner. We found a Woolworths and bought some drinks and fruit to have in our room, and in the end decided to get some food from Noodlebox, where we had a disappointing Pad Thai. We ate a bit in town, then got our free shuttle back to our hostel and finished our noodles in our room. We spent the evening in and watched My Kitchen Rules on TV!

5/3

We got up early for our trip as we were being picked up at 8.50. We headed outside to be greeted by a guy from the company telling us the trip was cancelled due to high surf. We booked on again for tomorrow, and gave my mobile number so he could text if the trip was cancelled again instead of getting ready. We went back to the room and tried to decide what to do with the day, seeing as we got pretty bored yesterday in the town! We decided to head into town anyway, as there was nothing to do around our hotel, and the weather wasn't great again. We walked along the beach into town today, as the tide wasn't as high. We looked around the surf shops, and I wanted to find something nice to spend some of my birthday money on. We had lunch at Hogs Breath cafe, which is a big chain across Oz, a bit like a cross between Spoons and Harvester. We had a nice burger and curly fries each from the lunch menu, which was quite a reasonable price. We then got an ice cream for our dessert and took it over to the beach to watch the surfers again. I bought a t-shirt from Roxy with my birthday money and then we headed back to the hostel along the beach. We laid on the bed with the TV on and accidentally fell asleep for 2 hours! We woke up, feeling rather groggy- this is why I never nap, I always feel worse after than I did before! We headed out to the beach outside the hostel to get some fresh air and to try and wake up a bit. We headed back to the room and spent the evening in, and had a couple of TimTams for an evening snack!

6/3

We got up early again for our trip, but didn't get ready straight away. We were told we would get a phone call about 8 if our trip was cancelled. We didn't get a phone all, but at 8.10 we got a text message to tell us the trip was cancelled again due to bad surf and that we could get a refund from where we booked it. We were quite annoyed, as there really was nothing for us to do in Byron Bay, and it was too late to try and book any other trips now. It also meant we had to walk back into town again to get a refund. We decided we would head to the beach, as the weather was better today. We went to try and get our refund, but the manager was out surfing, so we couldn't get our refund until later. We went to the beach and sat and read our kindle for a bit. We went back to our travel agent about 2pm and got our refund for the cancelled kayak trip. We bought a foot long Subway each to have half for our lunch and half for our dinner! We walked back to our hostel along the beach. We had our second half our foot of Subway and Chantelle packed her case ready to leave, but I was too tired and just packed my hand luggage instead! We were pretty disappointed with Byron Bay. It was a shame about our trip being cancelled as it gave us nothing to do- but the weather had been pretty bad in this area recently with the flooding. We were more than ready to move on tomorrow!

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