Tuesday, 25 May 2010

A weekend in Byron Bay

When Siobhan visited Australia she really enjoyed her trip to Byron Bay, so this weekend I finally made it up the coast to see it for myself. My friend runs a travelling film festival which visits Byron, and she's recently announced her impending departure overseas, so a bunch of us went up to give her a good send-off and get away from the city for the weekend.

The beautiful waters of Byron Bay


Byron is a small hippie coastal town near the border with Queensland, so we flew to Coolangatta and hired a car. The landscape is beautiful there, really lush and green with stunning sea views. In the predominantly rainy wintery long weekend we got one sunny day, so decided to do the walk out to the lighthouse.

Approaching the lighthouse


Coincidentally my housemate was there with one of his friends so we joined forces and larked about by the sea.

Oli jumps off a cliff


We spotted a wedding on the beach


Australia's most Easterly point


We had hired a lovely house and on Saturday we barbecued some fish and had a dinner party on the verandah.

The view from our house


The rain returned on Sunday but we headed inland to a friend's place for brunch. Some of their other visitors had brought their pet bird, imaginatively called 'Bird' who had free rein of the house.

Nick with Bird


Glenys has horses and a lovely expanse of land, so we played with the dogs and searched for Koalas that hang out in her gumtrees -- but didn't see any :(

Glenys and her horses


Nick and Jeff went diving but Nick's wetsuit was too tight so his hands swelled up to mutant proportions (we took a trip to Byron hospital but he was declared fine). Luckily he managed to ease the swelling by holding several cold beers on Saturday evening.

Jeff's underwater camera


I can see the appeal of Byron Bay but I found the town quite grubby and I think the proliferation of hippies and crusties would drive me nuts after a while.

We did get out to Bangalow though, which is quite swish, and I bought some lovely jewellry in the markets.

Now back in Sydney and it's raining all week. Winter is here -- it's great to wear boots and tights again!

cx