Byron Bay and the Sunshine and High Rise Coasts

Byron Bay was the only spot in Australia that everyone actually warned us about - saying it was too touristy and, gasp, they did not let you sleep in your car there. It also turned out to be a long drive so we got there quite late, in the dark, in the middle of a downpour. No couple could manage this without a fight and I thought we had quite a nice one while driving around for hours trying to figure out where to sleep. There were a ton of other Wicked Campers there but we started to see why they don't allow people to sleep in their vans in Byron - all the tourists we saw we're drunk and very very high, leaving trash everywhere, and genuinely incapable of intelligible speech. When we asked them where we could park overnight we just provoked fits of the giggles. Finally we heard about a spot from a few folks who hadn't yet visited the smoke shop, and we did eventually find it - rows of campervans lined up on a side street in the dark. But first we had to cook dinner, which we did in a carpark in the pitch dark, because we kept switching off the light in fear of getting fined every time we heard a car.



The next morning the sun came out and things were looking up. The main beach was packed so we drove up to the lighthouse, which is at the easternmost point in Australia, and boasted views down the coast on both sides of the point. It was amazing to see how much windier the Tallows beach side of the point was compared to the Byron side. Looking straight down the cliffs, Sam spotted some excellent waves so we burned rubber out of there down to the beach, which turned out to be Watego's. There Sam caught some good waves while I stayed on the inside, not catching anything because I was too afraid of hitting a small child, boogie boarder, miscellaneous tourist, or swimmer (those crazy Australians sit there and do the crawl stroke through the beach break!) Then we headed into town to do laundry and call up some friends we met in Cambodia who were from Byron Bay. They were two typically Australian sisters, generous and outgoing and fun-loving, called Lorien and Malaika. They were swimming on the beach and immediately came to meet us and brought us home to their parents' house where they offered us parking in the driveway, use of the bathroom, and even a spare bedroom! Their parents were just as nice - mom immediately offered us a choice of desserts and then dad took us on a guided beachwalk on Tallows. Their dad had travelled and lived in Asia and spent all his time in a sarong at home, it was interesting to hear about China from him and we definitely want to go there on our next trip.

In the afternoon Sam surfed Watego's again while I did the lighthouse loop walk, which was very scenic. We made dinner there on the free gas barbecues, then headed back to Lorien and Malaika's for more dessert and a peaceful sleep parked in Byron! Priceless! The next morning we attempted to surf at The Pass, a nice long point break with long rides and a million gazillion people in the water. It would have been a great spot for me, since you can just stand on the inside and push yourself into little knee high waves, but once again I was petrified of killing some poor child with the huge fin on my wombat board. Deciding the weekend crowds were just too much at Byron, we headed north to check out the opening day of the Quicksilver Pro up at Snappers on the Gold Coast. The contest was quite a scene, and they were surfing even though the conditions were horrible, because it was the first day. We got to see our stalker Joel Parkinson, also Chris Ward and some other surfers that Sam knows all about but weren't in my surfing video game so I don't know them or their abilities.

The sun was super hot on the beach so we continued driving nonstop through the Gold Coast. Nonstop because the place was a zoo, like Waikiki but going on forever and ever. We reached the Sunshine Coast which was supposed to be better but still looked horribly built up after New South Wales, so we just kept driving all the way to the north end of the Sunshine Coast at Noosa. By this point it was late and time for another fight. Luckily our guidebook served us well for once and pointed us to the mellowest spot in Noosa, Sunshine Beach. When we asked a local if we could park and sleep there, they looked at us like we were crazy for even asking - why not?! It was a great spot - the bathrooms were clean, the girls even had an indoor shower, and there was a nice coffee shop and a mini grocery store just up the road.

The next day we stayed there to surf. Even though it was an open beach, the beach break was actually quite good. Though there was a surf lifeguard camp right there, it never got too crowded because there were many peaks. Paddling out through the beachbreak and then fighting the current to stay in place was good paddling exercise for me, though I could usually only catch three or four waves before getting too exhausted. Sam was a good sport and helped push me into waves and even gave me the occasional tow when I got tired of paddling. When I went in, Sam had a lot of fun on his biscuit. We stayed there the whole day, though we did drive into Noosa Heads to see the town and buy me a rashguard so I could stop caking layers of sunscreen on my back. The next day - more of same!

After some debate we decided not to head further north. The Great Barrier Reef sounded awesome but expensive to reach and that time of year you need to wear a full-body jellyfish suit. We decided we'd rather spend more time in Byron and some of the places we'd missed in New South Wales. So we headed back south to Brisbane, to visit guess who? Lorien and Malaika were back at university so we went to stay with them in their apartment! The thing with Australians is they are so nice you don't even feel bad mooching off them! It was nice to hang out with them and spend a whole day using up their bandwidth uploading all our pictures and catching up on the blog - so everybody thank them for the pictures dating up to Brisbane! However on a big screen we could now see that most of our pictures, taken on Sam's ancient Canon Elph, had not come out, so we went shopping at the mall and bought a new camera on sale there. We also checked out the city a bit, and best of all went out to steaks with the girls. Mmm, steaks!



We didn't want to leave Brisbane but unfortunately we had to return our booby van. Ok maybe fortunately. When we booked the van the Wicked staff said that they weren't busy at all and it would be easy to extend our booking, so we decided to book just two and a half weeks in case we didn't like the campervan life. When we called them, we learned that everything is always cool and ok with the Wicked staff and no, they were completely booked, but they could upgrade us to a 4 wheel drive van for the rest of the trip. We were so happy to be free of the boobies we agreed! But first, we had a little time before needing to be back in Sydney, so it was back to Byron. Again, we pretty much skipped the Gold Coast, stopping only to sell Sam's Bali board for a measly $150 Australian - probably all it was worth!