Ahem... well I guess I owe Byron Bay a little bit of an apology, perhaps I was a little too hasty to criticise it quite so severely, because as it turns out we have had a brilliant time there (inspite of the rain). So following my little rant the other day we spent a hideous night on a camp site in Byron and lay awake listening to the base from the nearby club, thumping away until 1:00am (which as you can imagine added to my feelings of desperation)....However, the next day we called Will's friend Luke and went round to his house. Luke and Will met in Brazil and he is married to a lovely Brazilian girl called K and they have a gorgeous little boy called Tex who is almost two (and as big as a four year old).
They invited us to stay at their house which is just outside of Byron. This was perfect as it got us away from the hoards of people. It turns out this is the busiest time of year for Byron due to the Easter holidays and the Blues Festival (Bob Dylan is playing there!!!) so as you can imagine there are literally thousands of people in one very small area, however staying outside meant that the claustrophobia lifted. Their house backs onto the ocean and is painted in yellows and blues, very welcoming, very relaxing and way better than the inside of the van. We have spent the last couple of days with them, surfing, chatting and sitting at the beach.
This morning we got up at 6:30 and drove to the Lighthouse in Byron. From here we walked along to the furthest point East to look for wales as it's their migratory season and they can sometimes be seen passing this point. The sun thankfully had decided to shine and although we stayed for about an hour and didn't see any sign of wales, we did see pods and pods of dolphins swimming along and playing in the ocean. It's very relaxing to watch dolphins swim as they have such a fluid, gentle movement...anyway.... eventually we headed back to the house and had a BBQ breakfast with tomatoes, bacon, fresh juice etc...mmmmm. After this we went to the beach and then had a couple of beers in a bar overlooking the ocean.
On the way back to Corindi this afternoon we were chatting about the trip and all agreed that it's the people you meet who really make the trip memorable. We often have a choice, do we want to see everything, in which case it's a whistle stop tour, taking in all the tourist attraction. Or do we want to travel at a steady pace, taking in the occasional tourist attraction and getting to know people. We agreed that for us the latter is definitely better. We will all remember our time in Byron, but now, not because it was crowded and rainy, but because we met up with friends and shared dinner and wine and stories. Once again we spent the journey home singing and chatting and eating McDonalds, but we were all pretty sad to leave so soon.
We also can't believe how quickly the time is going. We have two weeks left on this coast and in that time we have to drive 1,000 km to Sydney (something like that anyway) and stop in and see the lovely Vallanders (hopefully) and Will's friend Ferg, and build Chris her balcony, if she has the materials. Then we fly to Perth for two weeks and then we are off on the final leg of the trip to Indonesia and then before we know it we will be home again. The time is flying by.
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