Big Love For Byron

As we rolled in to Byron I woke to the sound of my Ipod playing Prince- 1999. I thought to myself, 'what an brilliant way to arrive!'

Byron is a place where people arrive with expectations, wonder what the fuss is about before the charm takes over and then fall in love with the place and never want to leave.

Through my experiences I would describe Byron as a town that’s a cross between Kuta, Bali and Newquay, England with a slice of some European weekend getaway destination. You really have the feeling your on some kind of European city-break when your there, but the vibe is so chilled out and relaxed and well aussie. Tourism doesn’t spoil it, just kind of agrees with it. If the name Surfers Paradise hadn't already been taken, Byron should've been called that.

The people who live there are undoubtable effortlessly cool. Surfers with their long ocean tangled locks bleached by the sun, stroll around barefoot with their beautiful tanned bodies.

We got to Bryon after an all-night journey at around 6am; Unable to drop our things at the hostel until the reception open at 8, we walked along from the bus stop into the town until we came across 'Why Not' cafe and hung out there for a while and had some breakfast and a coffee. Luckily enough they said we were able to just go straight to our dorm, where we crashed out for a few hours exhausted from the journey and lack of sleep.

The weather that day was pretty rubbish but it didn't stop us and we took a walk down the Belongli Beach to Main Beach down to The Pass on the peninsular of Bryon and then headed into the town.

Anywhere you are in Byron, you’re no longer than 10 minutes walk to the nearest beach and without exaggeration these beaches are stunning. It really is a gem of a place. Even with the terrible weather the it still looked awesome.

The next day we took advantage of the two hours free bike hire our hostel offered with the intention of biking to the famous lighthouse at Cape Byron. Unfortunately with our lack of fitness and the hilly terrain, biking all the way to the lighthouse on these Harley Davidson-esque bikes which had huge wide handlebars and lacked gears was just impossible. We got as far as the bass of the lighthouse hill and locked them up before tackling the steep incline by foot. It was a nice view though and worth the effort.

After the exhausting morning we decided to take it easy and spent the afternoon enjoying the sun at Belongli beach right in front of our hostel. It was the perfect place to engage in some people watching with such a diverse range of folk. There was an old couple enjoying some swimming, a family playing with a dog and entertaining a toddler, a group of schoolgirls jumping in the waves and many dog walkers strolling along the beach with their extra friendly pooches. It was really nice to see so many different types of people enjoying the beach.

That evening the hostel tour operator, a mildly entertaining fellow who fancied himself as a bit of a comic, hosted a free wine and cheese night to promote some of the tours he offered, give out some general info on Byron and answer any questions. He used himself as the butt of many jokes and got a few laughs out the crowd. Regardless to his comic ability he was friendly and provided some helpful info; to be honest I'll always be game whenever there’s free stuff offered like most other travelers. He was a nice guy so we decided to book some surfing through him for the following day (so I guess the promo worked!) Being in Byron and not surfing is like going to north Queensland and not going to see the Great Barrier Reef; you just have to do it. After dipping my toes in the ocean in Bali I really wanted to give it another go anyways and it didn't take much convincing to get Jan involved too.

[In fact I think the convo went something like this-
Me: While we’re in Byron we should deffo do some surfing!
Jan: Yes I was thinking the same…
Me: We should totally get a lesson then
Jan: Yeah why not
Done.]

That night we also decided that the lighthouse would be a great place to watch the sunrise, so we got up at 4:30am on the Thursday morning and headed along the beach and climbed up to the lighthouse. However we completely mixed up the sunrise times and found ourselves there an hour too early, an hour that would have definitely been appreciated in bed. Unluckily the sky was pretty cloudy which obscured the view of the sunrise but even so it was still beautiful to see the sun breaking through the clouds.

The stupidly early start made us so unbelievably tired so we took a rain-check on the surfing and rescheduled for the Friday instead and just spent the day lounging around in 'Why Not' and strolling around Byron.

That night was the beginning of the film festival in Byron, which opened with a really interesting documentary named Minds in the Water. Made by a surfer from Byron, with the help of the director of the cove and some input from Sea Shepard, it was about illegal whaling practices and dolphin slaughtering. Filmed for the sake of the ever declining populations of these brilliant intelligent mammals, I found it intriguing and very educational. The more I've travelled the more aware I am becoming of various environmentally issues and its really opening up my eyes to the problems in the natural world caused by the selfishness of the human race. The lack of government action in enforcing laws set to protect the environment is astonishing as is the impact that chemicals and various farming practices are having on the natural world. It really makes you stop and think.

We ventured out afterwards into the town for a drink and ended up in a place named "Woody's.' We stayed for a couple schooners and Jan won a trip to Whitsunday Island in some posh boat worth around $500 in a raffle. Funnily enough we'd been talking a few days before about how much he wanted to go sailing at Whitsunday so it really worked out perfectly!

Every night we would make our way back from town via the beach; it made the journey a lot shorter than if we went by road but was also scenic. We made up a joke that there were sand snakes on the beach, so evertime i we walked down the beach we'd joke with each other about looking out for the sand snakes which would make the journey home a little more entaining by moving sticks and seaweed and spotting holes to feak the other other one out.

Friday was the day for surfing. We had booked a lesson with Mojo Surf and set off at 1pm to a place called Sharpes Beach. Having gone out into the waves with Rachman in Kuta I had an idea what I had to do but was certainly open to learning some more techniques and anything that would help me get up and surfing.
The guys were perfect teachers- friendly and approachable- essential when you’re trying to learn something new. The main guy took time at the beginning of the lesson to go through all the surfing basics- about rips, sandbanks, wind directions and the effects of the wind on the waves. I really appreciated the thoroughness and felt a lot more at ease going into the water afterwards knowing all these things. All the Mojosurf guys also made a kind of "Yeooooow!" sounds too, which I’ve realised later on is actually universal surfer sound which I found rather funny but is pretty cool!

After the days surfing, we were feeling too lazy to cook back at the hostel so went in search of a restaurant that we’d found on google that sounded nice. We eventually ended up in an alley way that had loads of cool restaurants and found two other places that looked real nice so it was a coin toss up between Thai green and yellow curry and trying calamari and oysters for the first time so we let the coin decide. The curry won.
Afterwards we went for a bathroom (so many bathrooms in Oz aren’t actually in the restaurant or café where you are but half a mile down the street!) and ended up in a bar just on corner near the alley way with the restaurants. It had a band playing so we stopped and had a schooner and watched the band for a while before we headed back via the beach watching out for sand snakes as we walked.

The next day we were in sooo much pain. I think every inch of my body ached. Even laughing hurt, and being with Jan it was impossible not to laugh. We spent a lazy day in Byron as it was not possible to do anything else. We ate Dominos pizza at a parkfor lunch and wandered round the arts market at the night after mealing at the seafood restaurant that had lost the coin toss the night before where we both tried calamari and Oysters for the first time. I do not understand why Oysters are the food of love. They look bad and smell worse. What is so romantic about that?!

To finish off the evening and the week together we headed to Woodys for one last drink. Stupidly they wouldnt let us go in with our bags so the options were home or a place called budda bar which we had to get a shuttle bus to. We flipped the coin and budda bar it was. It was a nice chilled out bar, that was situated at a hostel that i'd wanted to stay at but was unfortunetly fully booked. Jan tried the pubs speciality that was a tray of minis of all the ales that the pub offered from the lightest to the darkenest which in someway tasted a little like guiness. It was a nice place to round off the night and indeed the trip to Byron.

Altogether I spent five days in Byron with Jan and it was absolutely fantastic. It’s true what they say, the charm does take over and you do fall in love with the place and never want to leave, however it was time for me see what a yoga ashram was all about. Maybe just maybe I would return sometime in the future once again to slip into the surfer way of life for who knows how long.