Byron Bay

As I write this, its 10 days after we arrived in Byron and we’ve only just left. Its a small surf town with the accompanying laid back attitude and just kind of sucked us in. I’ll try to write about what we did in Bryon but if you are busy the words “beach” and “beer” sum it up reasonably well. That said we weren’t completely lazy, with highlights including:

- Surf School. We had a go at taking surf lessons with surprising success, both managing to stand up after an hour or so. I’m not sure you’d really call it “surfing”, as we were standing on boards the size of small beds, but not bad for novices.

- Sorting our lives out. 2 weeks into Australia and we still didn’t know what we were going to do. A long winded trawl round some travel agents later and we had spent the best part of $900 on trips to Fraser Island, the Wittsundays and a scuba diving course. Sorted.

- Nimbin. Nimbin is a tiny little place in the rainforest surrounding Byron and is famous for its “alternative” lifestyle. Without saying too much, the place is populated almost entirely by hippies and the bus which takes you there is called “The Happy Coach”.
Mum and Dad – probably best if you don’t Google Nimbin.

- Old Friends. Our friend Pauline came down to see us in Byron, cue much talk of Fiji and questionable boxes of wine. Always a pleasure to see a friendly face.

- Have I mentioned the beach?

I feel like I’m starting to get into the swing of Australia now. Byron was very chilled and allowed us to sort out the rest of our time in Oz. I’m a lot more relaxed and have things to look forward too rather than aimlessly drifting. It’s good to have structure sometimes - old habits die hard...

Notes

- Why pay more? We arrived in Byron late to find our keys left under the front door mat. Therefore if you don’t have any money for accommodation in Byron Bay, simply swing by the YHA around 10pm and pick up a key from under the mat. Easy.