We thought we would blog one more time before we head to Asia tomorrow. We’ve had a great time in Australia. The beaches are beautiful and we certainly spent our fair share of time on them. We spent a great couple of days in Byron Bay and got around paying the $85 they were asking for a campsite. We ended up spending the nights on a roadside rest stop. It was quite funny because when we went to sleep (which was usually around 9pm in the campervan because it gets dark at 6pm), there were a few vans parked there. When we woke up, the vans were lined up bumper to bumper, four lanes thick! You could barely get in to the rest stop because of everyone that was sleeping there. It didn’t matter to us, because we had avoided paying the ridiculous prices they were asking to camp.
We made two big mistakes in Byron….I mentioned in our last blog that the Blues Fest was going on when we were there. Well, the tickets were really expensive (minimum $150 per day and it went for 5 days), and because of that we didn’t even look into going because we figured we wouldn’t know any of the bands playing. We were really wrong. We found out last night that Jack Johnson and The Fray were both playing!!! Had we known that, we totally would have splurged and gone for at least one day. It’s our own fault for assuming wrong! Our other mistake was not taking a surf lesson in Byron. We had planned on taking lessons somewhere along the coast and we decided that Byron would be the best place to do it. Once again, when we got there the town was a gong show because of all the people for the festival. We decided that we might as well wait and take lessons in Surfers Paradise, where we would be spending a couple of night before returning the van in Brisbane. We arrived in Surfers only to find that the surf was dangerously wild! The beach was lined with surfers admiring the four of five of their mates who were risking their lives in the crazy waves and currents. These waves were just like you see in the movies. It was great to watch, but we knew we couldn’t attempt it as there were no “learn to surf” groups to be seen. We spent some time in the water but even that got scary and would only last five minutes. We ended up staying in Surfers for an extra night because our friends Ashley and Ryan (from Edmonton) were coming into town. We thought we may get a better day and try surfing then, but it only got worse. One surfer who was braving the elements wasn’t so lucky and was rescued from the ocean with a broken neck. We knew then, that we wouldn’t be trying surfing in Australia. We are a little disappointed that we didn’t get to do it, but it was our own fault once again, for not trying it in Byron even if it was crazy busy. Either way, we had a fun time in Surfers. We hung around “Main Beach”, which was a couple of km from the Surfers Paradise “city centre”. We spent most of our time around the beach, walking and running along the path that follows the coast, and we met up with Ashley and Ryan the night before we left which was awesome to see them again.
We have returned our beloved Chowder to her home in Brisbane. It was sad to see her go, but we are happy to continue onto a new adventure. We are here for two nights before taking off to Singapore tomorrow morning. We are really looking forward to seeing all the SE Asia has to offer and have only heard great things!
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