New Years in Byron

I've been told by a couple people that I need to update this more often... but before I do that there is a bit of catch-up in order.

My last post talked about how I spent Christmas in Brisbane. My holiday travels continued after that onto Byron Bay for New Years. Now for those who haven't been to Australia and don't know much about Byron... it is very much a hippie surfer's city. however it is also a place which is known as a big party place - even if the majority of the usual partiers are back packers. I joined a group of friends there for the celebrations.

On New Years Eve I decided to have a go at surfing. Thinking that I took 1 lesson almost 2 years ago now I figured it couldn't be too bad.... but it was! I basically ended up being thrashed about in the waves and didn't have a hope in hell of actually standing up. But I gave it a go and that was the important thing for me. What I didn't realise is that laying on the board had exfoliated all of my sun screen off my stomach and chest. Even though I had put tons of sunscreen on prior to going to the beach I managed to get absolutely fried on my stomach. We're talking lobster red (and I'm not exaggerating here), painful burns. Everywhere which wasn't on the board was fine I might add.

The beach - albeit on New Year's Day when it was a bit more overcast

In true vacation spirit I applied plenty of aloe and continued as normal. We had made reservations at one of the local restaurants for set menu dinner, which was OK if at best. The night time celebrations were a bit anticlimactic. We found a pub which didn't have a ridiculous cover charge and settled in for some drinks. Before we knew it someone was saying "Happy 2010"... no count down, no nothing. :(

New Years day ended up being a bit better as I went on a hike with one of the girls I met on the trip, Mareike. In addition to having absolutely amazing beaches, Byron has the most Easterly point in Australia as well an old light house. Mareike and I hiked up to these see these things as well as spot some dolphins off the coast. Unfortunately these are the only pictures I have from this part of my holiday... better than nothing though!

You'll actually see this lighthouse on many of the tourist brochures used for Australia as it's one of the few still in operation

The obligatory tourist picture

The view south from the Easterly Point

Now in light of my ever present credit card debt over the last few months I've been trying to make sure I have a balance of having fun and 'living' while not spending soo much money. Hence us making our Christmas dinner, fitting 5 people in a hotel room in Byron Bay, and saving $200+ by riding back to Sydney with one of the girls from Byron. Initially I was very excited about driving back. I would be able to see more of the country and it wasn't supposed to be too long - only 7-8 hours (which is short by Australian standards). However.... factor in the highway we took was only 1 lane each way for the majority of the time, would go through the heart of small towns which of course HAD to have a roundabout which backed up traffic for 30-40 minutes... and the drive ended up taking 12 hours. In my book, that's the kind of drive which I would rather pass up for a cheap flight of 2 hours. Oh well... 20-20 hind sight I guess. By the time we got home, I was very excited to have my new bed to sleep in (by myself) and having a good sleep in the next day.