Byron Bay and Mount Warrigal

Launching point for hang gliding!





It took us a little while to warm up to Byron Bay (our hostel was quite messy...saw a cockroach crawl underneath my bed!) but in the end we liked it. Byron was basically a relaxed hippie surfer town. We hang glided our first day, which was awesome. We each launched off a lookout point up by the lighthouse in Cape Byron park and had about 30 minutes in the air with a hilarious old Aussie hang gliding vet. I got to steer for a bit (was pretty pleased about that!) Our second and third days we went surfing...or tried to at least! We found the waves MUCH harder to surf than those in Hawaii...needless to say after two days we only surfed a few waves successfully! On our last night we went out with 2 Swedish guys and a German girl who were staying in our room. We went to a few club/bars in Byron and guess what! We saw Kyle Kilburn (my old neighbour/schoolmate/Mike’s old soccer friend) at the bar!!! It turns out he’s been living there for 9 months! What a small world! Anyways the night out was really fun, and we were sad to leave our new friends the next day when we caught a 9 pm Greyhound to Sydney.

After a 13.5 hour bus ride and a 2 hour train ride, we arrived in Mount Warrigal to visit some family friends of Mike’s, John and Debbie and their two kids (about our age) Marla and Sean. They have been super nice and very good to us. Marla took us snorkeling our first day at a local bay. It was no Great Barrier Reef, but we still saw 2 sting rays! Today John and Deb took us to Kiama, a cute little town by the ocean about 15 minutes drive from Mount Warrigal. We also watched Sean’s “footie” game, which basically is the Australian version of rugby. That was pretty cool to see. We’ve been enjoying the break from the hostel scene...nice to have a bed to ourselves, a washing machine, home cooked meals and free internet time (and of course, the excellent company of our hosts)! Tomorrow we are going surfing with Deb and then heading to Sydney for the remainder of our trip! (Hoping to go to some markets tomorrow!)