Hippyville Central

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Geo: -28.6434, 153.612

Fletcher was invited to attend the Oceania Athletics Association Congress to be held in Tweed Heads this Friday. We decided to go and spend a couple of days at Byron Bay first. I had never been here although Fletcher had in the long distant past but we thought a couple of days on the North NSW coast might be fun.

We flew from Adelaide via Sydney and lobbed into Coolangatta airport at 1pm.After collecting our Nissan Micro hire car we started out on the freeway south. We decided to take the less hurried route and turned off to visit Cabarita Beach.near Bangagor. This was typical of the coast line here but we were fascinated by the number of jellyfish stranded on the sand as the tide was going out.

We made a few stops at different beaches along the way, where we found that the white sandy stretches were continuous and the surf fairly strong .We made a longer stop at Brunswick Heads where the Brunswick River meets with the ocean. The colour difference between the churning water at the river entrance to the calmer green water at the adjoining beach was quite striking.

We arrived at Byron Bay about 3-30pm. It was a very slow drive from the freeway into the town. We drove through the main shopping area and then out on the road to Cape Byron and the lighthouse. After a quick look around there we headed back to town to find our Motel, Dolphin's which I had booked online. We booked in and then headed back into the centre to have a look around. After finding a park we walked along Johnson Street which is the main shopping/cafe strip. People watching was fascinating. There were heaps of surfie types and young and older Hippies. We stopped for a drink at the Great Northern Hotel enjoying the $3 beers and were surrounded by Backpackers from several countries to judge by the accents.We found a great bookshop and of course made a purchase or two. Then we went right to the Beach itself.

There were some interesting sculptures on the sand and lots of surfers enjoying the waves. We booked a table at Fishheads, a restaurant overlooking the surf, for later and then walked back to the car, We returned to the Motel after purchasing a couple of bottles of wine for later use.

We returned to Fishheads at 7pm and had a fantastic meal. We started with Lamb Spring Rolls which were delicious and substantial in size. Then Fletcher had the mixed seafood grill while I had the Portuguese Seafood Stew. Both were fantastic but very substantial and neither of us could eat it all.

A great day and tomorrow we are planning to visit the Cape Byron Lighthouse which is the easternmost point in Australia.

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