Was my favorite beach city/smaller city. I don't think I realized this until reviewing my pictures and remembering how fantastic our day adventures were in Byron Bay! Byron Bay was the start of beautiful weather (our first Australian tans!). Plus, Byron Bay was the place we had our first beach day! It was 25.5 degrees on our first beach day! It was also cheaper than the first 2 cities we visited because they were so big! The stores that were in the city were not chains/franchise stores and it had a hippy feel to it (we were informed that the locals stood up against having a McDonald's in their city... I thought that was pretty cool to be able to have power in numbers like that and support local store owners!). We stayed at the Nomads hostel in Byron Bay for 2 nights, which was pretty decent... They played loud music all the time, which made it seem like there was always a party going on, but really everyone was in their rooms. But the facilities were good and we met a few nice people when there!
On day 2, we had our first beach day!! We were very excited for this because we started so far south of Australia that we were wearing coats and scarves and we definitely wanted a little heat when on vacation!
When we were on the beach, we were approached by some girls that were advertising for the restaurant/night club in Byron Bay - Cheeky Monkeys. They informed us that from 7-9pm there was $5 supper served at Cheeky Monkeys. I have never seen a deal like this even in Canada where its cheaper!! $5 (no tax) got us an alcoholic drink (I had a beer), squash soup, hamburger, and fries! Unreal! After feeling somewhat ripped off with Australia's expensive prices, this was an awesome surprise!
On our final day in Byron Bay, we went on a morning adventure to kayak with the dolphins! This picture isn't us (we are still working on getting our pictures back from our underwater camera, but water leaked through!) but shows what we did! We kayaked through huge ocean waves into the water where we were able to see several pods of dolphins! It looked like they were playing in the waves. We saw baby ones too! The waves were also super fun to ride over and we were one of the boats that didn't tip over! (about half tipped over!) we're awesome like that.
On our second day, we went for a walk to the lighthouse. In this picture we're standing on the most easterly point of Australia. On this walk, we saw a crazy looking lizard/iguana/snake looking thing with stubby legs, and a poisonous snake! Some good finds! At the top, by the lighthouse it was really windy but we still got a gelato at the cafe by the lighthouse after trying to find dolphins in the water! (we were told it was a good spot, but we didn't see any).
Here's the lighthouse! There was a small museum inside of the lighthouse that we looked through as well. There were some newspaper articles that were interesting about surfers in Byron Bay finding a whale and a car that drive off the cliff and into the water (this was actually a really sad article).
SURFERS PARADISE
We arrived at Surfers Paradise really late at night, so we did not get preferential treatment when it came to rooms. We stayed at The Islander, which was a hostel and also a hotel. It was really different from all the other placed we stayed! We were put in a room on the bottom floor, which was removed from all forms of civilization. It was a super creepy room that clearly hadn't been updated since maybe 1970, with a kitchen that was pretty much abandoned. The room was all gated up and seemed like a prison for girl backpackers! We asked to move the next day and were moved into what seemed like a normal hotel room, just with 5 beds instead of one!
The Surfers Paradise beach was absolutely beautiful. The feel of the city was a little more touristy than Byron Bay and there were way more people on the beach than Byron Bay (and in Byron Bay it seemed like everyone was a backpacker and here, there was a diverse age range!). We were informed by someone along the way that many Australians come here for vacation. The city center had a really high sky line and there were many tourist attractions that reminded us of Niagara Falls (Ripleys Believe it or Not, Haunted Houses). We spent most of the time on the beach or shopping. It definitely had a strong shopping vibe to this city.
One of our beach days! This was the city we spent the most time on the beach. The weather seemed warmest earlier in the day rather than at home when its warmer in the afternoon... Usually by 3:30pm or so the wind made the beach chilly. That's probably why we ended up shopping! There was a really cute strip in Surfers for shopping. The city reminds me of what I picture Miami to look like!
We wanted to have McDonalds just once on our trip to say that we tried it in Australia (I know after learning about the Byron Bay locals and their ability to boycott it, we probably shouldn't have supported a large corporation... but...). It was pretty much the same thing as here (well my cheeseburger and fries) but Nikki's chicken burger didn't seem like it was deep fried. We also noticed that at the Australian McDonald's there were family meal deals!
I like this dorky picture! We tried scuba diving for the first time ever in Surfers Paradise!! Scuba Diving is something that would take me several attempts to become comfortable with because of the psychological component of thinking that because I am under water, I need to surface for air (and I didn't feel like I was getting an adequate amount of sir from the oxygen). I practiced by breathing, got through the necessary skills in order to continue forward, saw some pretty fish under the ocean water then I went back to the boat before my group finished up. I still am glad I tried it out, and I think if I was more comfortable with the breathing I would be able to scuba dive again! Nikki went for the whole time and took some pictures underwater but somewhere along the way, our underwater camera cracked so we're really hoping that we can still find someone who can develop them even though the film got wet.
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