Winegar's Around The World
Starting from all the way back in Japan and all the way through Australia we had people recommend Byron Bay to us. We were told this was one of the best places in Australia and everyone loves it. We never heard a single person say a negative thing about it. For all the great things that were said about Byron Bay, Ashley and I somehow just didn’t get it.
Our trip from Surfers Paradise to Byron Bay was pretty short and we got checked into our hostel on the first day. In this particular case it was another hostel that was more like an apartment. Our room was a private room but there was another room that had 4 beds in it. After checking into our room, we decided to go out and see what was going on in town.
The town itself is really small. We were able to walk through basically all of it in the first afternoon. The feel of the town is basically a mountain town (small) but right next to the ocean. It’s basically a surf town where everyone just hangs out and relaxes. The first day we just checked everything out to see what all there was to do there.
One of the days we were walking through town I saw a public restroom. I soon found out that this was no ordinary bathroom. In fact, it was closer to a space ship than a bathroom. I’ll let the experience speak for itself….
After we checked out the town we were both a little confused about what to do next. We had kind of seen it all the first day and we were both tired of going to the beach (I know I know). We decided to go on a walk up to a light house that was a ways from town. I forget how far the light house was but it turned out to be about a 3 hour round trip walk from town. We made our way that direction but we were not disappointed by the views along the way. We came across lots of great beaches and the walk along the coast was really beautiful.
We finally made our way up the hill towards the light house. As we did, we came across a sign which indicated we were at the most eastern point of Australia which was cool. We also came across a lookout just below the light house that had a great view of the ocean. As we looked down we saw a manta ray and also a lot of dolphins swimming together. We made our way to the top, got the selfie, and then started to make our descent. On the way down, I heard Ashley wince and stumble to the side. I tried to quickly help brace her but the damage had been done. She rolled her ankle on one of the steps. We made it a short ways down to a bench and sat there for a while so she could give it some time to rest. Fortunately she was able to continue on and we walked back towards town.
One of the nights we were at the hostel there was a weekly BBQ. It was about $10/person but it was all you could eat. We had 2 British guys staying in our room who were also going. We ended up chatting with them for a bit before we went to the BBQ and we all started playing cards. I can’t remember the card game they taught us but it was a good time. Right before the BBQ one of the guys leaves the room and comes back wearing a dress. He had apparently lost a bet to his friend and had to wear a dress to the BBQ that night.
After our trip to the light house we didn’t really have a lot to do in Byron. The last day we were there it ended up raining which worked out perfectly. We had already planned to just go see movies that day. We hit the local movie theater and ended up watching 2 movies back to back! We had an 8 PM bus that night which was an over night bus taking us to Sydney.
Overall, we didn’t dislike Byron Bay at all. In fact, we were both happy we stopped there to check it out. By the time it was all said and done we both were a bit perplexed about why everyone thinks Byron Bay is simply the best place on earth. Perhaps we were too old to get the full experience. Perhaps our spirit animal didn’t connect to Byron Bay. Maybe we should have bought a few joints and a guitar and sat with the locals. For whatever reason, Ashley and I just didn’t get the same vibe everyone else got but that’s what makes life great! Everyone enjoys different stuff!
